Red Wings-Avalanche wrap-up: frustrated Red Wings believe hard work is their solution

The Detroit Red Wings have an 0-3-and-2 record over their past 5 games thanks to a 2-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night.

Detroit just can’t seem to get out of its own way right now. When they play great defensively, they can’t score. When they score, they can’t play defense. And their special teams remain mixed (Detroit was 0-for-1 on the PP and 0-for-1 on the PK), to boot, which can just kill momentum, as the Avs did when taking their 2-0 lead only 2:44 into the 2nd on a Cale Makar goal.

Ville Husso was very good on Saturday evening, too, stopping the 23 shots he saw; the Avs’ screens were the reasons why two pucks got past him.

The Avalanche had lost 4 of their past 6 games coming into Saturday night’s affair, so it wasn’t as if they were rolling along, but Colorado Hockey Now’s Aarif Deen notes that the Avs turned the ship around in a hurry:

Through the first 27 games, the Avalanche have only led five times at the first intermission and won each time. They did both of those things on Saturday, defeating the Detroit Red Wings 2-0 at Little Caesars Arena. The Avs hadn’t held a lead at the first intermission in 15 games. They scored the first goal and played with the lead the rest of the way.

“We keep talking about our starts and being ready to go,” head coach Jared Bednar said. “I had a good feeling about this one coming in.”

Valeri Nichushkin and Cale Makar scored for the Avs, who improved to 2-1-0 on the road trip and 15-13-0 overall in a game where many of their struggles seemingly were corrected, at least for a night.

Casey Mittelstadt’s eight-game pointless drought? It’s over. He had an assist on the Nichushkin goal.

Leading the league in first-period goals against? That’s still true but Detroit couldn’t get anything past Alexandar Georgiev in the first 20 minutes despite having at least two golden opportunities.

Speaking of Georgiev, could he bounce back from the meltdown in Buffalo? Absolutely. Georgiev was exceptional in the first period, and, despite the Avs getting outplayed at several parts of the game, he did his part to keep them ahead the entire way.

How about the struggling power play? One chance, one goal. That’s one of the perks that comes when you take on a laughably bad Detroit penalty kill, which operated at a 67.5% rate heading into the matchup against Colorado.

The Avs were also happy to see Valeri Nicushkin begin to get back into the swing of things after missing the first part of the season in the NHLPA’s Player Assistance Program, as they told the Denver Post’s Corey Masisak…

It’s the sixth goal of the season in 11 games for Nichushkin. He also scored three straight goals for the club, including the final two to give them a chance at the end of the game Thursday night in Raleigh, N.C.

“He’s such an impactful guy,” Avs defenseman Cale Makar said. “He can play virtually anywhere — top two lines, PK, power play — wherever you want. He’s been huge for us. He eats a lot of minutes and is starting to play really well. He’s starting to find his feet. When he’s driving his feet, really nobody in the league can stop him.”

The Avalanche held the lead after the first period for only the sixth time this season, and for the first time in 15 games. Colorado is now 6-0 in games when it leads at the first intermission.

Ross Colton, playing for the first time since Oct. 28 because of a broken foot, drew a penalty early in the second period. Colorado’s top power-play unit has cooled off recently but didn’t need long to convert the chance against Detroit’s 31st-ranked penalty kill.

Makar played catch with Nathan MacKinnon before finding a lane near the top of the offensive zone. Nichushkin provided the screen in front, and Makar collected his ninth goal of the season. MacKinnon leads the NHL with 32 assists, while Makar leads all defensemen with nine goals and 35 points.

“It’s great,” Makar said of the power play scoring. “Val had a really good screen in front of the net. That doesn’t happen without him or (Artturi Lehkonen) in the slot.”

The Avs reiterated their points of emphasis to ColoradoAvalanche.com’s Coby Maeir…

The Avalanche beat the Red Wings 2-1 at Little Caesars Arena on Saturday. Valeri Nichushkin and Cale Makar were Colorado’s goal scorers while Alexandar Georgiev made 29 saves. With the win, the Burgundy and Blue improved to 15-13-0.

“He was outstanding,” Avalanche Head Coach Jared Bednar said about Georgiev. “Especially when we needed him. [He made] key saves to keep it 1-0, key saves to keep it 2-1, and then the flurry at the end.”

Nichushkin opened the scoring at 10:48 of the first period with his sixth goal of the season via a wrist shot from the slot after his previous shot was blocked.

“He’s been huge for us,” Makar said about Nichushkin. “[He] eats a lot of minutes and [is] starting to play really well. [He’s] starting to drive his feet and when he’s driving his feet, really nobody in the league can stop him so [it’s] fun to watch.”

The Avs doubled their lead on the power play at 2:44 of the middle frame when Makar scored his ninth goal of the season with a wrist shot from the point.

“It’s great,” Makar said. “Val [made] a really good screen in front of the net, that doesn’t happen without him.”

MacKinnon and Rantanen picked up the assists on the goal, marking the 100th time they’ve assisted on the same goal in their careers.

The Red Wings mounted a spirited push for a tying goal in the 3rd period, as NHL.com’s Dave Hogg noted…

The Red Wings had eight of their nine third-period shots after pulling goalie Ville Husso with 2:36 to play. At one point, Georgiev made five saves in 11 seconds, all from inside 20 feet.

“At that point, I’m just trying to make one and get ready for the next one,” he said. “We knew there was a push coming after they got the goalie out, so I was just trying to find the puck and get something on it.”

For the Red Wings, frustration was the name of the game…

Lucas Raymond scored for the Red Wings (10-13-4), who are 0-3-2 during their skid. Husso made 23 saves.

“Obviously, we are very frustrated once again,” Detroit defenseman Moritz Seider said. “We did a lot of good things, but not for a span of 60 minutes, and that costs you against a very good team. No one is happy in the locker room. Why should we [be]? We’re losing games that are winnable.”

The five straight losses for the Red Wings have been by one goal. They have scored four times in the past three games.

“You can all save yourself some time and just paste up the same write-up you’ve had the last five games,” Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said. “We had a stretch last year where we were bad. We earned that losing streak. This feels a little different, but the bottom line is we’ve got to do more to flip these games.”

Seider agreed with his coach, as he told the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan…

“Very frustrating once again,” defenseman Moritz Seider said. “You do a lot of good things but not enough over a span of 60 minutes and that’ll cost you against a real good team. We came out in the third (period) with not nearly enough jump as we had before and couldn’t really sustain any kind of zone time, not really dangerous chances and didn’t force them into uncomfortable situations. In the end we had some good chances but it’s not good enough.”

This was going to be a difficult game for the Wings to end their recent slump. The Wings now have lost 12 of their last 13 games against the Avalanche. Both Seider and Lalonde feel, understandably, that confidence is beginning lag with the losing streak, and frustration is building.

“No one is happy in the locker room and why we should we (be happy)?” Seider said. “We’re losing games that are winnable, and we just can’t find ways to get it done. That’s really frustrating and we shouldn’t be lying to ourselves — we need to be better.”

Lalonde wants to see more offensively out of a team that has struggled to score all season.

“I don’t see how it can’t be,” said Lalonde, of the growing frustration. “Playing some responsible hockey, going through a stretch you give up two goals in 60 minutes to Boston on the road, and (two to Ottawa) one with one minute left in a tie game, and two tonight. We’re doing some quality things but we just have to have a little more offensively. I don’t know if it’s confidence, but a little frustration that it’s not going our way. Even in the end, we had a ton of looks, different looks on the goalie pull and just couldn’t finish.”

The Wings are playing too much on the perimeter currently and need, in Lalonde’s estimation, a “greasy’ goal near the net to help get the offense going.

“Probably (be) harder, get greasy goals, get more to the net,” Lalonde said. “We have some DNA where guys want time and space and kind of hang out on the outside and it’s hard to produce in today’s NHL like that. You have to break them down and get pucks to the net. People defend so well in today’s NHL. Just getting pucks to the net and getting in some foot races, we have to do more of it. I know it’s not in the DNA of some of our guys, but it has to be going forward.”

The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton noted the reasons why the Wings were so bloody frustrated…

By the end of the second period, Detroit had built momentum, culminating in a Lucas Raymond goal (deflecting home a Dylan Larkin point shot) with 1:47 remaining before intermission. The Red Wings weren’t creating an abundance of chances by any means, but they were carrying play and with Raymond’s goal, they halved Colorado’s lead entering the third. However, in winning time in the final period, Detroit fell flat—silenced for most of the frame before a desperate empty-net push created the sort of chaos that might have produced an equalizer but didn’t.

That end-of-game six-on-five flurry aside, offense proved painfully difficult for the Red Wings to find. There were a few good chances—Moritz Seider off an odd-man rush in the first, J.T. Compher all alone in front of the net after a rare Colorado breakdown in the second—but they stuck out as exceptional on a night when the Avs tended to deny access to the scoring area. Far too often Saturday night, Detroit tried and failed to send a pass into the slot, instead turning it over, or fired a shot straight into an Avalanche shin pad. The end result was another toothless night at five-on-five.

“People own the middle of the ice,” pointed out Lalonde. “You gotta break them down. A lotta times you gotta break ’em down by just getting pucks to the net. I think that’s one are of our game that can be a little better.” He would go on to re-emphasize this point, saying “People defend so well in today’s NHL: video, repetition, owning the middle. Just getting pucks to the net and getting in some foot races, we gotta do more of it. I know it’s not in the DNA of some of our guys, but it’s gotta be.”

As for the prevailing emotion following a fifth straight loss? Predictably disheartened.

“I don’t see how it can’t be,” replied Lalonde, when asked whether confidence had started to wane for his team. “I think they’re playing some pretty responsible hockey, going through a stretch where we give up two in 60 minutes to Boston, we give up two on the road and one was a minute left in the game, we give up two tonight. We’re doing some quality things, but we gotta do a little more offensively.”

Lalonde continued while speaking with Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen…

“I would say they just won some shifts [in the 3rd] and they just, they got some zone time,” Lalonde said. “Like we had some wall turnovers, we had some breakouts. We couldn’t get our game going. Now we had some moments of it, but it’s just again, that’s the point of where if we kind of could have rolled our second into our third, I think we find that goal. But we had some wall battles lost. They’re heavy on some sticks. We had some turnovers and it didn’t hurt us, but it hurt us in zone time and getting a push. Our margin of error is extremely thin right now. We can’t lose moments.”

Detroit defenseman Moritz Seider said the Red Wings made too many mental mistakes on breakouts early in the third, and that’s enough to cost a team severely in today’s NHL.

“I think no one is happy in the locker room. Why should we?,” Seider said. “We’re losing games that are winnable, and we just can’t find ways to get it done. Obviously, that’s really frustrating, and we shouldn’t be lying to ourselves. We need to be better, and that shouldn’t drag us down, though. We come to the rink with a big smile tomorrow, get ready to work, play two opponents that are really close, and hopefully, yeah, get four points and get back with a little bit of swagger.”

And the Free Press’s Helene St. James:

“We had some wall turnovers and we had some breakouts where we couldn’t get our game going,” Lalonde said. “That’s the point where, if we could have rolled our second into our third, I think we find that goal. But we had some wall battles lost, they’re heavy on some sticks, we had some turnovers. It hurt us in zone time and getting push.

“Our margin of effort is extremely thin right now. We can’t lose moments in the game and there were some moments in the third we just lost some shifts and we couldn’t get things rolling.”

J.T. Compher, a second-line player who has three goals on the season and none since Oct. 27, said the Wings “have to stick together. A lot of frustrated guys in the room and it’s got to be our group of guys to find our way out of it.”

Seider said the Wings maybe need to “cheer each other on. Work a little bit harder in practice. Find a little bit of confidence and just find a good reason why we want to beat teams and be on the winning side. That has to come from us. Nobody else can do that for us.”

Lalonde pointed to the stretch last season when the Wings lost seven straight games in regulation from Feb. 29-March 14, during which they were outscored, 36-12. This stretch hasn’t been like that: Going back 10 games, they’ve been outscored, 28-25.

“We had that stretch last year, and we were bad,” Lalonde said. “We earned that losing streak. This feels a little different, but the bottom line is, we have to do more to flip these games. I think they’re playing some pretty responsible hockey. But we have to do a little more offensively. Just a little frustration that it’s not going on our way.”

The Red Wings concluded that their 3rd period effort wasn’t good enough while speaking with DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills…

“The last 10 minutes in the second [period], we found another gear,” Seider said. “We kept the lines rolling and kind of dominated there a little bit. Scored a great goal, but then we couldn’t really capitalize on the third. Got away from the game a little bit, not really good enough on breakouts. A lot of bad decisions, then the game kind of went by and we couldn’t really get going.”

Detroit came close to scoring the game-tying goal as time wound down late in regulation, but Georgiev weathered a storm of shots and offensive-zone pressure from the home club after Husso was pulled with 2:36 remaining.

“Our margin of error is extremely thin right now,” Lalonde said. “We can’t lose moments in the game. Probably some moments in the third [period] where we just lost some shifts, and couldn’t get things rolling.”

And J.T. Compher told Mills that they could learn from the Avs’ ability to shut things down later on in the 3rd period:

“It’s something we can learn from, what they did in the third. It’s a close game and they’re only up a goal. I think we’ve had opportunities in the last few weeks to get up another level in the third period. It’s a one-goal game either way. They stayed aggressive on us. We just didn’t execute well enough to get out of our zone quickly.”

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Highlights: Sportsnet posted a 10:20 highlight clip: