Red Wings-Flyers quick take: Wings win a wild one, but lose Edvinsson

The Detroit Red Wings hoped to avenge a 4-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers last week as the Wings hosted the 14-13-and-4 Flyers at Little Caesars Arena on Wednesday evening.

Detroit hoped to build upon Saturday’s win against Toronto as it kick-started a slate of 4 games to be played over the course of the next 6 nights.

On Wednesday night, the Red Wings won a weird one. Detroit surrendered a breakaway goal to Travis Konecny only 1:06 in. Detroit rallied to take a 2-1 lead, surrendered a 2-2 goal, rallied for a 4-2 lead coming out of the 2nd period, surrendered 2 goals over the course of the early 3rd period to tie the game 4-4, and Patrick Kane scored the gamer at 7:22 of the 3rd, with Lucas Raymond’s empty-netter sealing a 6-4 victory.

Alex Lyon gave up 4 goals on only 19 shots against, and the Wings lost Simon Edvinsson to an upper-body injury only 5:36 into the 1st, so Detroit was a little hamstrung defensively…

But Raymond, Compher and Kane all had a goal and an assist, Larkin had 2 assists, birthday boy Alex DeBrincat scored a goal, and Moritz Seider and Ben Chiarot played 27:04 and 28:16, respectively.

Pregame: The Red Wings hit the ice at Little Caesars Arena just before 6:30 PM EST:

The Flyers only share their starters…

And the Red Wings iced the following lineup…

The starters and scratches were as follows:

1st period: Either the Red Wings’ coaching staff respects the “Laughton Line,” or they wanted to shake things up, because Detroit started Joe Veleno, Marco Kasper and Christian Fischer opposite a line that scored 4 goals against them a week ago.

Anyway, the puck hit the ice at 7:08 PM at Little Caesars Arena, with Kasper tying up the draw and Laughton sitting on the puck at center ice before the Wings wrestled the puck back to Gustafsson and chipped, but didn’t chase very well.

After a battle at center against an aggressive 2-1-2 forecheck, Detroit pushed the puck deep and Gustafsson slithered a puck toward the net, where Fischer almost scored;

54 seconds in, the teams changed lines, and Gustafsson flubbed a pass, Edvinsson missed Joel Farabee’s pass to Travis Konecny, and Konecny breezed by Edvinsson and went 5-hole on Alex Lyon, scoring the 1-0 goal.

Farabee and Couturier got the assists on Konecny’s 1-0 goal at 1:06 of the 1st period.

Detroit then threatened some 3:30 into the 1st, when Ben Chiarot and Jeff Petry both generated scoring opportunities on Ersson, with Chiarot firing the puck juuuuuust wide of the goal cage…

Lucas Raymond, Dylan Larkin and Vladimir Tarasenko also got on the cycle at 4:45, unable to dent Ersson, but generating some momentum with a hard shift in the Flyers’ end, all facilitated by a hard-charging move from Moritz Seider…

Both teams really settled in for a long battle after rotating their 4 lines, and neither team was too keen on taking a lot of risk in the opposition zone…

But the Kasper line had a good shift vs. the Hathaway line, forcing an icing at 6:24, and Rasmussen, Motte and Compher ground out some zone time in Philly’s end, generating another icing against the Flyers at 6:57.

The Tarasenko-Larkin-Raymond line got another good cycle going and forced Ersson to stop a puck with his head at 7:32, ushering in a TV timeout.

From there, the Flyers retreated into a 1-4 trap, and a Moritz Seider flipper in on Ersson was the best the Wings could do for a bit.

The Flyers got a couple of chances against Lyon about 10 minutes into the 1st, and Joe Veleno had to make a good back-check to stifle a slot chance, but the Flyers did a nice job of pushing back against the Wings’ attack, accumulating shot attempts against…

It was good to see Edvinsson and Seider communicate–and Seider pinch a lot–as the Wings continued to battle their way through a very uneven period, and Detroit’s forecheck generated a power play at 12:16 a Sanheim sat for holding.

The Wings worked the power play unit immediately, with Gustafsson and Kane nearly connecting with Andrew Copp, who was stifled by Ersson;

After the Flyers cleared the puck, Tarasenko was stopped TWICE in a row after Andrew Copp swiped the puck from a flyer and slid the puck back to Tarasenko on the left wing side;

On the next entry, birthday boy Alex DeBrincat almost scored stuffing the puck into Ersson at the left side of the net;

Larkin’s line came onto the ice, and while the Red Wings got some boos for regrouping at center ice, Larkin, Raymond, Seider, Kasper and Compher worked the perimeter, Raymond had a shot blocked out of play, and Seider blasted a puck that Compher couldn’t jam home as the power play expired.

Detroit took 4 shots on their power play, however, and there was some gas back in the balloon after the Wings’ momentum did a Hindenburg when Konecny scored.

Veleno and Petry also struggled on a 2-on-1, struggling through a golden opportunity…

But Petry flubbed the puck at his own blueline and got high-sticked, so Detroit headed back to the power play as Owen Tippett sat at 15:42.

During the commercial break, Tippett was assessed a double minor for drawing blood, so Detroit headed to what could be a lengthy power play.

On the power play, the Flyers were dominating in faceoffs, so they won the first deep offensive zone draw, and Larkin and company were unable to initially penetrate the Flyers’ zone, so Larkin, Compher, Raymond, Kasper and Seider worked the perimeter on their second try, Seider blubbed a keep-in…

And Kane’s unit came out, Tarasenko and DeBrincat cycled for Gustafsson, Rasmussen joined the fray and Kane really walked around the Flyers’ D, gave and went with Tarasenko, but was blocked;

Larkin’s line came back out for the 2nd part of the PP, and again, the Wings were rushed a bit, but Seider walked the line, found Raymond and Seider gave it to Kasper, who nearly scored, but was stifled at the goal line by Ersson;

But Raymond fed Larkin along the left wing side, Larkin shot the puck onto J.T. Compher’s stick and he tipped the puck past Ersson to tie the game at 1-1 at 18:19.

Raymond and Larkin got the assists on Compher’s goal at 18:19, which tied the game 1-1. PPG.

The Wings faltered a bit as the period went down to zero digits, but Detroit emerged with a 1-1 tie after giving up a good chance to Couturier in the final minute of the 1st.

2nd period: The 2nd period began with the Laughton line against Kasper’s company, but Compher was facing Konecny for the second faceoff only 19 seconds in, and the teams traded zone time…

With Tyler Motte goofing up a 2-on-1 due to a “Beaver Tap” by Sanheim;

DeBrincat sprung Kane in the slot off a terrible turnover by the Flyers, but Kane was unable to score on Ersson some 3:00 into the 2nd;

Gustafsson had a good scoring opportunity off a drop pass from Fischer, and Kasper did a very good job of maximizing the offensive impact of Fischer and Veleno;

The Flyers did push back a bit about 4:45 into the period as the Konecny had a really, really good shift, followed up by Michkov’s line dekeing and dangling into the zone, only to be stifled by Chiarot and Seider…

Who were together via necessity as Simon Edvinsson exited the game:

The defensive pairings were a little jumbled, as you might expect, with Petry and Holl and then Gustafsson working as best as possible to assuage Edvinsson’s loss;

Again, Kasper generated a good scoring chance, and again, Gustafsson nearly fumbled away a puck at the blueline, off a pass from Holl, so that evened out…

Sanheim walked in and walked around the net, and he deked and dangled his way to an “almost” goal and another slot attempt before he surrendered an outlet pass to Patrick Kane, who raced up with Alex DeBrincat on a 3-on-1. DeBrincat took the pass from Kane and fired a shot past Ersson to make it 2-1 at 10:15.

Birthday boy Alex DeBrincat scored at 10:15 from Kane…2-1…

But the Flyers responded immediately, with a weird bounce in the corner going to Tyson Foerester, who sent the puck on net through the shin pads of Noah Cates and into the net over Lyon to tie the game 2-2 at 10:40.

Cates tied the game 2-2 from Foerester and Nick Seeler.

2 goals in 25 seconds, with the Kane line on the ice for both the goal-for and goal-against.

After a TV timeout, the Kasper line came out and Veleno and Kasper nearly slithered a wraparound attempt in, and Kasper sent a longer attempt in on Ersson as well;

But the Flyers really pushed hard and really nearly scored against Seider, Petry and the Larkin line some 13:30 into the 2nd, and that was worrisome.

Justin Holl being a righty on the left-hand side afforded the Flyers a tremendous opportunity to score on Lyon with 4:42 left in the 2nd, but Lyon made a big stop and the puck went off his shoulder, off the glass, and back to the front of the net…wide thereof.

Thankfully, J.T. Compher won a faceoff with 3:55 remaining in the 2nd, and Rasmussen shot right away, beating Ersson through traffic provided by Motte.

Michael Rasmussen made it 3-2 at 16:05 from Compher. 3-2 Detroit.

Larkin then circled the zone, but Gustafsson couldn’t sustain the cycle, the Flyers pushed right back into Detroit’s end, and the Kasper line…

Afforded themselves a 3-on-1 via a bump-and-collide by the Flyers’ D, with Kasper sending the puck to Fischer, Fischer sending it to Veleno, and Veleno sending the puck to the back of the net.

Veleno scored at 17:27 from Fischer to make it 4-2.

Again, the Flyers came right back with a heavy effort and they backed Copp’s line in as Seider and Chiarot were pushed to their shift-length limits in the last minute of play, but the Wings escaped a 2-plus minute shift for the Wings’ top D-pair, and the Wings escaped the 2nd period up by 2 goals.

3rd period: The Red Wings hoped to build upon their 3-goal 2nd period while avoiding as much wear and tear on their 5 healthy defensemen as possible…

The Flyers were the first to sustain a forecheck, however, with Konecny and company cycling hard in the Wings’ zone for a good 90 seconds against Chiarot and Seider before Detroit was able to make a line change;

Lyon made a big stop as Laughton dropped the puck to Couturier for a sneaky 2-on-1 stack shot;

But Lyon couldn’t keep the puck out of the goal when Gustafsson and Seider collided, affording Couturier a pass to Poehling in the slot, who tipped the puck through Lyon’s legs.

Poehling made it 4-3 at 3:50 from Couturier and Sanheim.

Detroit attempted to rally its troops against the Flyers’ plucky puck-carrying forwards, but the Wings looked deflated again after the 4-3 goal the same way that they did after the 1-0 goal, and “gassed” is not a good look.

Gassed was a worse look after the Red Wings let Owen Tippeett skate into a Scott Laughton pass and undress both Jeff Petry and Alex Lyon, who were unable to stop the 4-4 goal.

Tippett tied the game at 4-4 5:39 into the 3rd period, from Drysdale and Laughton.

The Flyers were dominating the 3rd period, scoring on 2 of 3 shots over the course of the first 6:30, and the Red Wings were just…flat…again.

But wait! Moritz Seider took the rebound of a bad clearing attempt, Seider slithered a lengthy 3-line pass up to Patrick Kane at the offensive blueline, as the Flyers were changing lines, and Kane ripped home a 5-4 marker at 7:21.

Kane scored from Seider to make it 5-4 at 7:21.

Detroit’s rather bipolar energy level raced back up to 100% after the goal, and the building was breathing again after Kane scored, too.

Still, the Flyers did not relent.

Michkov and Seeler came in on a 2-on-1 and forced Lyon to make a really superb stop 9:44 in;

Lyon also had to scramble as Seider almost put the puck past his own goalie, with Nick Seeler being the recipient of a couple of fortunate Flyers bounces that could have ended up in the Wings’ net.

It was evident as the 10-minute mark passed that the Wings were doing their best to “hold their own” on defense, but Seider and Chiarot were earning their air miles…

And, bizarrely, the refs called Tyler Motte for a hold, chose not to call it, and during that period of time, Samuel Ersson skated to the bench, the Flyers had 6 skaters on the ice, and Detroit raced up 3-on-1 on Ersson as he skattered back to the goal to stop Michael Rasmussen.

BUT OF COURSE Patrick Kane was called for a “hook” after a Flyers defenseman fell, and Ryan Poehling toe-picked at 13:09.

On the penalty-kill, Seider made an amazing clear working with Larkin, Raymond and Chiarot;

As the PK continued, Seider and Chiarot remained on the ice for the second minute, and Seider had to make another tremendous clearing attempt and a pass to Copp to get the Wings out of trouble on a 1:45 shift;

Detroit killed the penalty.

The Flyers still pressured Detroit, however, after the penalty expired…

Larkin almost snuck an Ersson clearing attempt to Raymond for a slot-shot one-timer…

But instead, Lyon had to gobble up a Drysdale shot with 4:04 remaining in the 3rd…

Off a weird back boards bounce to the left of Lyon, Seider and Chiarot had to stifle a Flyers stir that miraculously did not result on a shot on goal…

Ersson tried to leave the net with 2:30 remaining, and he couldn’t leave his crease when the Flyers iced the puck with 2:17 remaining…

But the Flyers were dominating faceoffs all evening long, and Ersson exited with 2:05 left in the 3rd…

On the 6-on-5 against…Seider cleared the puck for Rasmussen, and on the next exchange, he almost scored an empty-netter…

So Philly called timeout with 1:41 remaining in regulation time, and, after a lengthy period of time to review which players were on the ice when the Red Wings iced the puck…

The Flyers won another draw, and Moritz Seider took a puck to the FACE, but emerged unscathed…

And when the Flyers tried to cycle away, Dylan Larkin stole a Seeler pass, gave it to Lucas Raymond, and Raymond blazed away to score the 6-4 empty-net goal at 18:48.

Lucas Raymond scored from Larkin at 18:48 to make it 6-4.

The Flyers pulled Ersson again, and generated a couple of chances against Seider and the Wings, but Detroit won the game 6-4.

Statistics: Here are the Game Summary and Event Summary:

Published by

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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