Red Wings-Lightning wrap-up: work smarter, not harder

The Detroit Red Wings dropped a 5-1 decision to the Tampa Bay Lightning despite out-shooting Tampa 40-22 on Saturday night, with Detroit’s Atlantic Division/Wild Card playoff hopes taking a dent as a result.

Tampa’s Brayden Point would score only 2:02 into the 1st period, seemingly taking the wind out of the Wings’ sails, and after the Wings seemingly recovered for the balance of said 1st, Tampa Bay scored 3 goals in 3:52 of 2nd period play, thanks in no small part to the brilliance of Nikita Kucherov.

Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 39 shots as the Bolts faced 78 shot attempts, too, and while the Wings went 1-for-6 in 11:56 of PP time, Tampa was opportunistic in going 2-for-3 in only 2:31 of PP time.

The Bolts received 1G + 2A (a.k.a. 3-point) performances from both Jake Guentzel and Kucherov, who hit the 600-assist mark, and while they were penalized far more often than the Red Wings, the team bent and did not break thanks to Vasilevskiy’s fantastic goaltending.

Detroit’s only goal came from Lucas Raymond, who scored on a one-timer from Patrick Kane and Moritz Seider to make it 4-1 on a 2nd period power play. Tampa would close things out with one more power play marker, and they hung on for the balance of the 3rd period.

The Red Wings will head to Dallas to play the Stars tomorrow (8 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/Victory+/97.1 FM).

As the Tampa Bay Times’ Eduardo A. Encina noted, the Lightning earned what will be an important win down the line against a team that they’ll see again next Saturday at Little Caesars Arena in no small part thanks to Kucherov…

It was an important 5-1 win against a surging division rival, who they’ll face again in a week. The Lightning entered the night just 2-6-0 against Atlantic Division opponents.

Kucherov reached 600 assists in the third-fewest career games among active players behind only Connor McDavid (616 games) and Sidney Crosby (704), accomplishing the milestone in 767. Kucherov extended his point streak to eight games, and his 68 points were second most in the league (ahead of the late games).

But the Lightning were impressed with their goaltender as well…

Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy — who made 39 saves on the night, his second-highest total of the season — kept it a one-goal game by thwarting DeBrincat’s one-timer on a 2-on-1 breakaway with Kane, cutting off the post with a right pad save with 6:58 left in the first.

“He’s been consistent the whole year,” Kucherov said of Vasilevskiy. “He’s been our best player, so we’ve got to play better in front of him.”

Vasilevskiy stopped all 30 even-strength shots he saw, with the only goal against him coming in the 11 minutes, 56 seconds of power play time the Lightning gave the Red Wings.

“For me, personally, a few shots in the first period helps a lot to feel the puck, feel a little bit of that confidence that I need sometimes,” Vasilevskiy said. “The guys, they were able to get through the first period.”

And Kucherov himself, well…he’s a man of few words.

Asked about reaching the milestone, Kucherov simply said, “Cool.”

“Well, you got four letters out of him,” [coach Jon] Cooper joked. “There’s not enough time to talk about what Kuch has meant to this organization and to this league, quite frankly. He’s a generational player, and hopefully we get to see hundreds more of those in the future.

Vasilevskiy agreed with his coach, as he told NHL.com’s Corey Long…

Said Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy of Kucherov: “Obviously he’s one of the greatest to play for this team. An exceptional player and one of the biggest reasons we’ve had success over the past few years.”

But the Red Wings were not happy with their performances:

Lucas Raymond scored for the Red Wings (21-20-4), who had won eight of nine. Cam Talbot allowed five goals on 16 shots before being replaced by Alex Lyon to start the third period. Lyon stopped all six shots he faced in relief.

“They owned us in and around our blue paint and I didn’t think we were real aggressive around their blue paint,” Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. “Yeah, we had 40-some shots on goal, but Vasilevskiy saw most of them and I don’t think we did a lot to help our goaltenders around the blue paint.”

…

“We didn’t reach our standard by any means, and it’s on us, right?” Raymond said. “We need to come prepared for every game and good thing we’ve got a new chance tomorrow (at the Dallas Stars).”

Raymond cut it to 4-1 with a power-play goal at 14:12, scoring on a one-timer from the left circle off a cross-ice pass from Patrick Kane.

“First couple power plays, it would have been nice to get one to get the lead,” Kane said. “Obviously we feel pretty confident in our power play, but it kind of let us down tonight. We shot a lot of pucks at the net, their goalie made some good saves, and we obviously had some breakdowns defensively.”

Coach McLellan was blunt:

“Disappointed in our group because I thought we were kind of at our desk but not really working,” McLellan said. “We were in position a lot of times, but didn’t get the job done.”

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

“You can get fooled by our 40 shots, or whatever it was,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. “We want to be a volume shooting team and we were, but we had zero presence in and around our net. When Vasilevskiy sees it, he’s going to have zero problem stopping it. He made saves, give him credit, but at the other end of the rink, our net play wasn’t where it needed to be.”

And McLellan wasn’t necessarily singling out the defensemen for the subpar net play.

“It’s something we have to clean up and when I use those words (net play) everyone will think it’s the defensemen but it’s also the low forwards (defensively) that struggled,” McLellan said. “Not a good night for us in those areas and we’ll focus on that.”

Kane lamented the special teams disparities between the two teams…

“They’re special players, pretty dynamic on five-on-five and when you give them some room on the power play they’re able to take advantage of that, too,” Red Wings forward Patrick Kane said. “We’ve seen it for a bunch of years from their top guys and they continue to produce.”

Kane felt getting an early power-play goal — the Wings had two power plays in the first period and couldn’t convert — could have made a difference.

“Maybe it changes the momentum of the game,” Kane said. “Special teams was a factor. It would have been nice to get one to get the lead. We feel pretty confident on our power play but it kind of let us down a little bit tonight.”

And Lucas Raymond was equally blunt:

“We didn’t take care of the puck well enough, didn’t break out well enough and didn’t do a lot of stuff,” Raymond said. “Against a good team like that, they’ll punish you.”

Raymond and McLellan continued while speaking with DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills:

“I thought we were in position a lot of times to prevent, and we just didn’t do our work,” Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan said. “Say you’re at your desk, but you’re not working. Then, you’re useless. It’s one thing being there. It’s the other thing getting the job done, and we didn’t do it.”

Just 2:02 into the game, Brayden Point gave Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead when he backhanded a rebound in tight after Emil Lilleberg’s point shot bounced right to him off the back boards.

“That kind of set the tone for us,” Lucas Raymond said about the Lightning’s first goal. “[Defense] is a huge part of our game, right? Didn’t get it done tonight.”

Also from Mills:

McLellan on the decision to change goalies

“We talked about it in the second period, getting Alex some work before tomorrow night. He’s going to play tomorrow night in Dallas, but we wanted Talbs to finish and Alex to go in with a bit of a warm up and stretch instead of going in cold.”

Kane on how Tampa Bay’s defense shut down Detroit

“First couple of power plays would have been nice to get one to get the lead. Obviously, we feel pretty confident on our power play but it kind of let us down a little bit tonight. We shot a lot of pucks at the net and their goalie made some good saves. We had some breakdowns defensively that cost us.”

Kane on the Lightning’s star power

“They’re special players, right? Obviously, they’re pretty dynamic 5-on-5. Then when you give them some room on the power play, they’re able to take advantage of that too. We’ve obviously seen it for a bunch of years, from their top guys, and they continue to produce.”

Raymond on the power play going 1-for-6 and special teams battle overall

“Not good enough of the power play. And I think, all in all, it was far from our best tonight.”

Raymond on if he felt the Red Wings didn’t play as sharp

“We didn’t reach our standard by any means. It’s on us, right? We need to come prepared in every game. Good thing we got a new chance tomorrow.”

As Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff noted, it doesn’t get any easier from here:

Detroit was jetting to Dallas immediately after Saturday’s game for a Sunday (8 p.m.) start against the Stars.

“That’s the importance of kind of flushing this one and getting back on the ice tomorrow night against Dallas,” Kane said. “Learn from this one I’m sure we’ll go over some things and get right back at it.”

Detroit is winless in the last 11 games at Dallas (0-8-3).

So it is. The Red Wings and Pistons are what we’ve got in Detroit sports now, and in the Red Wings’ case, it’s up to them to stand up to the challenges before them and “answer the call” to perform.

Multimedia:

Highlights: Sportsnet posted a 10:16 highlight clip: