Red Wings-Senators wrap-up: shaking out the demons

The Red Wings’ 4-3 overtime collapse to the Ottawa Senators on Friday did not count toward anything other than a 3-2-and-2 preseason record for a Red Wings team that will head to Toronto to wrap up an astonishing stretch of 8 games played over the course of 11 nights on Saturday (7 PM on ESPN+/TSN4).

Long story long, blowing 2-0 and 3-1 leads and surrendering a very ugly overtime goal don’t count for much. The Senators’ B Team getting away with trying to push around and out-work the Red Wings’ A- team doesn’t count.

Austin Watson taking a set of penalties that ended up placing the Red Wings on the penalty kill for 7 minutes doesn’t really matter…To anybody but coach Lalonde, anyway:

But this one stung, at least for those of us for whom the Senators have become a heated and sometimes hated rival. The Sens are the young punks of the Atlantic Division, and they seem to have an uncanny ability to vex and wreck the Red Wings.

The Senators’ press corps didn’t travel to Detroit, so the Senators’ website, the Hockey News’s Steve Warne and the Ottawa Sun’s Tim Baines provide recaps from the Sens’ side of things, and I’d argue that Baines’ recap offers the real bottom line here:

One of the teams the Senators need to leap ahead of is Detroit. The Red Wings narrowly missed the playoffs a season ago, but had 13 points more than Ottawa. Other Eastern Conference non-playoff teams to finish ahead of Ottawa: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Buffalo and New Jersey. Ottawa might be on the rise, but Detroit has plenty of young talent as well. Detroit has missed the playoffs each of the past eight seasons, it has been seven years for Ottawa. Detroit had the much more experienced lineup Friday, but … Ottawa hung tough and won. [Senators forward Noah] Gregor said: “On paper, we probably didn’t have the better lineup and we came in and got the win. Greener has been preaching Win the Day … and we did that.”

For the Red Wings, the best news of the night involved Marco Kasper’s performance, as MLive’s Ansar Khan noted:

Marco Kasper on Friday displayed the skills that prompted the Detroit Red Wings to select him eighth overall in the 2022 draft.

Kasper scored a pair of goals in the first period, but the Ottawa Senators rallied for a 4-3 preseason victory on Noah Gregor’s goal 19 seconds into overtime at Little Caesars Arena.

The Senators scored twice in the final 4:28 of regulation to tie it, on goals by Adam Gaudette and Donovan Sebrango, the former Red Wings defense prospect included in last summer’s Alex DeBrincat trade.

Vladimir Tarasenko scored to Detroit a 3-1 lead with 4:52 to play in the third before the Senators stormed back. Alex Lyon made 30 saves, playing the entire game.

Kasper scored at 1:24 by corralling a loose puck in the Senators zone, breaking in along and flipping a shot past Anton Forsberg.

Kasper made it 2-0 at 8:32 with a snipe off the rush from the top of the face-off circle.

He had a couple of great chances to complete the hat trick but was denied on a shorthanded breakaway in the first period and a wraparound attempt in the final minute of regulation.

The Free Press’s Helene St. James also took note of Kasper’s performance…

Kasper, the team’s first-rounder from 2022, scored 1:23 into the game when he took a pass from Tyler Motte, skated towards Ottawa’s net and snapped a shot behind Anton Forsberg. Seven minutes later, it was 2-0: Sprung by Olli Määttä, 2024 first-rounder Michael Brandsegg-Nygård carried the puck up ice into the neutral zone, feeding a cross-ice pass to Kasper. Kasper raced into Ottawa’s zone, and, from the top of the left circle, fired an innocent-looking shot that somehow eluded Forsberg. Shortly after that, Kasper had a shorthanded breakaway for a shot at a natural hat trick, but he couldn’t get the puck over Forsberg’s pads.

“It’s always fun to score,” Kasper said. “It’s just trying to win the game and trying to help the team to win. It would have been to score a hat trick, but I guess you can’t score on every opportunity. But it’s good we get opportunities on the PK as well.”

But Kasper is the son of a professional hockey player, and he didn’t like the outcome…

“The rhythm of the game wasn’t really there,” Kasper said. “We played pretty good in the first and came in with the lead in the second period. It’s a lot of penalty minutes. We have to try to learn from the mistakes we made that they scored two goals to tie the game and next time we just have to focus on winning.”

And neither did defenseman Olli Maatta–or coach Derek Lalonde:

“The good thing is it doesn’t count yet, but we have to figure out how to close those games out,” Olli Määttä said. “I think the structure is not bad, but it’s the compete. Always these games, whoever competes more, wins. You can see it throughout the league – NHL lineups lose to AHL lineups just because of compete. So our big message has always been to try to get that compete up even in these game. We just have to have it when the home opener comes.”

There was 8:33 left in the third period when Adam Gaudette took advantage of being left open to score on Alex Lyon and halve Detroit’s lead. Vladimir Tarasenko made it a two-goal game when he fired the puck top shelf from the left circle with 4:58 to play, but inside half a minute, the Senators again made it close, with Gregor driving the net to score on a power play. Donovan Sebrango, a former Wings draft pick that was part of the 2023 trade that brought Alex DeBrincat to Detroit, scored with 3:25 left, against Dylan Larkin’s line.

“You’d like to manage the game a little better in the end,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “The poor penalty kill probably got them back in it. The last three goals were all just very lack of urgency in our defensive game.  I liked our first couple periods. Even the third wasn’t bad. Power play unable to finish, that was probably a big part of the game. And then we took almost 15 minutes of penalties – we almost spent a whole period in the box.”

Lalonde continued while speaking with the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan…

“The reality is sometimes veteran type of players getting what they need out of the exhibitions, and I don’t love it, you push back against it as a coach because I don’t think you just turn it on once the games start here on Thursday,” Lalonde said. “We’ve had a hard camp, we’ve asked a lot of our guys, and probably everything (has contributed to the results). There was a little more in our compete. It was ebb and flow, it wasn’t good at all (Thursday). (Friday) we had a little more.”

Again, coach Lalonde was fine with Austin Watson’s costly penalties and ejection, all things considered…

The Wings and Senators have played some physical, nasty games in recent years and even Friday’s exhibition had some of that, despite Ottawa playing a mainly minor-league roster.

Wings forward Austin Watson, in camp on a professional tryout, was ejected from the game in the first period after jumping to contain Ottawa’s Jan Jenik after Jenik and the Wings’ Moritz Seider were exchanging slashes.

“I liked that, it energized our guys,” Lalonde said. “Mo is a very important player for us and we don’t want him getting into those situations. I liked it a lot.”

As the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood also noted:

Pre-season hockey is often full of penalty minutes, but tonight’s clash between Ottawa and Detroit was decidedly nastier than any of the Red Wings’ other pre-season engagements to date.  The first period brought with it a series of minor post-whistle skirmishes, eventually escalating into a tussle between Austin Watson and the Senators’ Jan Jenik and Zack MacEwan.  The conflict began as a bout between Moritz Seider and Jenik, before Watson inserted himself.  The end result was 41 minutes of penalties, including 27 for Watson himself, which put the Senators onto a seven-minute power play.

Lalonde appreciated Watson taking up for Seider much more than he minded the penalty minutes, saying of Watson’s role in the incident, “I like that. I thought it energized our guys. Obviously, Mo’s a very important player for us. We don’t want him to get into any of those type of situations, but I actually liked it a lot.”  “It’s amazing just one guy with that mentality just helps the group out a ton, and again, up to that point, Austin was good in his game,” he added.  “[He] kills for us.  He had a beautiful Grade A chance backdoor five-on-five.  He’s done some great things with his play also.”

Watson is of course in Red Wings camp on a PTO, but Lalonde’s high praise suggests a full-time contract could well be in short order.  It’s worth noting that Detroit could very well sign Watson, then send him to Grand Rapids (after he passes through waivers), but Lalonde’s words suggest there’s more than a faint chance he dresses on opening night next Thursday.

I don’t think that Watson is going to end up yielding the Red Wings waiving a goaltender or something like that, but if he’s willing to ride buses for a bit in Grand Rapids, I do believe that the Wings would find a way to sign him.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff was unimpressed by the Wings’ effort, and, given that the “A-Team” is 0-2-and-1, he suggested coach Lalonde and the players were right to exhibit a certain level of concern…

“A little of it’s probably preseason,” Lalonde admitted. “A little of it is the unfortunate reality sometimes of veteran-type players getting what they need out of exhibition.”

That doesn’t mean the coach is okay with this development.

“I don’t love it,” Lalonde said. “You push back against it as a coach because I don’t think you could just turn it on when the (regular-season games start here on Thursday.”

The Red Wings have been enduring through a rugged camp. Many players have been expressing the opinion that it’s been the toughest camp of their pro careers. That, Maatta believes, can ultimately be their saving grace as the regular season is approaching.

“It’s been there, but I think not throughout 60,” Maatta said of the club’s compete level. “It’s understandable, but I think it’s something you just can’t turn on and off. And I think we have it in practice. I think we battle, we compete, and we work really hard, which is a good thing. And I think, I’m sure we’re gonna have it when the puck drops for real games.”

He’d better be right. Otherwise, it could be another long year for Detroit.

I’ll allow you to make up your own mind as to whether we should be panicking on October 5th about a team that’s gone 3-2-and-2 over the course of seven games, and DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills will take us out with a set of quotes from Lalonde, Kasper and Maatta:

Lalonde on Kasper’s Training Camp: “He’s been excellent. Energy, some finish there. He’s had a really good camp. Obviously he won’t be playing tomorrow. We’re not going to put him in a three [games] in three [days] situation, but really good camp. All of our young guys gave us some energy tonight.”

Kasper on what he learned from Friday’s game: “We did a good job on the penalty kill, but we got to try to learn from the mistakes we made. They scored two goals to tie the game. Next time, we got to focus on winning this game.”

Maatta on having toughness against clubs like Ottawa: “We need to stick together. We did that today. That’s the toughness you need. It’s not necessarily fighting, but it’s the team spirit of not backing down and support your teammates. That’s the mindset we’ve had, at least all three years that I’ve been here. We’re going to keep doing that.”

Kasper on what he’s been able to accomplish this preseason: “We’ve worked really hard and had to compete in practices, which is a really important part for us as a team. We’ve had some good periods as well, which helps me and as a team. Just trying to get out there and work really hard to do the best we can, that’s what I’ve tried to do. That’s what everybody has tried to do, and now we just got to get into the game and win.”

Maatta on what he takes from preseason games: “Big thing is playing with multiple guys, at least as a D-man. I don’t think I’ve ever played a season where I’ve had the same partner for the whole season. Just kind of knowing tendencies of each other.”

Ultimately, I think it’s, “A little bit of column A and a little bit of column B” here. There is some concern given the underwhelming performances of the Red Wings’ top players over the course of the preseason, and the details of the game have yet to catch up with the Wings’ key contributors, especially on the power play.

But this is the preseason, and the fact that the team is working out the kinks and shaking out its demons now might be a better sign than we think come November or December.

Multimedia:

Highlights: TSN posted a 2:22 highlight clip;

NHL.com posted a 10:00 “condensed game” and a 5:03 highlight clip in NHL.com non-embeddable format, but they also posted the “condensed game” on their YouTube channel:

Post-game: To their credit, TSN 1200 in Ottawa does a great job of posting post-game audio in a hurry:

The Senators’ website also posted post-game videos of Noah Gregor, Adam Gaudette and coach Travis Green’s post-game comments;

The Red Wings also posted a clip of Marco Kasper, Olli Maatta and coach Derek Lalonde’s post-game comments:

The Free Press’s Helene St. James also posted an abbreviated clip of Kasper, Maatta and Lalonde’s comments:

Photos: The Senators’ website embedded 7 images in its website’s recap;

The Free Press posted an 8-image gallery;

The Detroit News posted a 22-image gallery.

Statistics: Here are the Game Summary and Event Summary:

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, and have worked with MLive and Kukla's Korner. Thank you for reading!

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