The Detroit Red Wings won 4-2 over the Montreal Canadiens last night at Little Caesars Arena.
The Red Wings now sit only 3 points behind Montreal, 5 points behind the Wild Card-holding Tampa Bay Lightning, and 6 points behind the Boston Bruins, who sit 3rd in the Atlantic.
This morning, four Red Wings pundits discuss last night’s result:
- The Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses the Wings’ ability to “not be too cute” over the course of a strong start to last night’s game:
“I think we can skate with anybody,” defenseman Moritz Seider said after the Wings’ 4-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday. “We have to have a shooting mentality. Don’t necessarily be too cute, and at the start, really focus on playing north-south hockey — get pucks to the net, really grind their D out. I think that’s stuff we can do over and over again.”
The Wings (22-21-5) will need to do it over and over again: Even when they had won seven in a row earlier this month, the closest they got to the playoff picture was two points out, with two teams ahead of them. Since that streak, they’ve gone 2-3-1, and now there are a handful of teams ahead of them.
That’s where Thursday’s game can help. The Wings had jump from the get-go, they scored first, and they scored five-on-five, with a man advantage — and with a man disadvantage. It wasn’t hard for McLellan to answer what he liked best.
“I liked our start,” McLellan said. “I thought everybody got into the game. We were aggressive, we looked fast. I challenged the group before the game, because part of the pre-scout was the two games that they had played against Montreal pre-Christmas. In that game, we looked slower and a little indecisive, and wanted them to give us a guideline of whether we’ve made progress.
“We were aggressive, we were quicker, we played faster. For the most part, that was how we looked 10 days, two weeks ago, so that’s a good sign for us.”
2. MLive’s Ansar Khan focused on Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin’s 700th game and 650th and 651st points:
“Huge win for us and memorable night for myself,” Larkin said. “And I think it’s going to be memorable the way we played and hopefully we can build off that because after that trip, coming home and against a team that we didn’t play well against before Christmas and are chasing in the standings, to have a nice night like that for a team is awesome and something that we can definitely build off of.”
Larkin, 28, is the second-youngest Red Wing to appear in 700 games with the franchise. Steve Yzerman reached the milestone when he was 27.
Coach Todd McLellan has a short history with Larkin but realizes his importance to the team.
“I think he is the player he is because of his drive and competitiveness,” McLellan said. “He came into the league in diapers. All young players do. And this is his family. He’s grown up with it. He’s a true Red Wing. Seven hundred games means a lot. Original Six team. That’s really remarkable in my mind.
“And over and above that, all the things that he does for the team when he puts the equipment on, but also when he isn’t wearing the equipment. And that’s likely why they’ve chosen him as the captain a while ago. And the group was really happy for him tonight.”
3. Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff noted that the Red Wings’ big penalty-kill came through for Detroit, with Andrew Copp scoring a shorthanded marker, and the Wings killing off the penalty the team took when coach McLellan challenged Michael Rasmussen’s would-be goal:
“Teams are probably coming in and saying we got to take advantage of their penalty kill because our number is not good,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. “They had a chance to strike and maybe swing the momentum back. And Copper and that group did a real good job and it just sets them back.”
Not only that, they successfully killed off all three Montreal power plays on the night. Including one that was self-inflicted.
Midway through the third period, Detroit thought Michael Rasmussen had made it 4-2. However, the tally was waved off for goaltender interference. McLellan was opting to challenge the call. He lost and the Red Wings would be penalized for delay of game.
“I still think it’s a goal, or I wouldn’t have called it,” McLellan said. “I thought that Ras had every right to go in after a loose puck. Then I thought he made every effort to avoid and I thought that (Montreal defenseman David) Savard had his stick on his hips. And when you’re standing up, stiff and straight, trying to avoid something and you get pushed, you don’t have any balance. So that’s what we thought, but obviously we were wrong.”
In doing so, not only was McLellan rolling the dice. He was aware that Plan B would require the NHL’s 31st-ranked penalty kill (68.9%) to close the door on the Montreal power play.
“When we challenged, it was okay,” McLellan said. “We know it’s going one way or the other. And if it goes against us, get ready because we can do it. And they did a real good job.”
4. Finally, the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton posted his morning-after-the-game notebook, discussing Larkin’s role in the win–and the tactical portions thereof:
By game’s end, Detroit had put a season-high 45 shots on net. That spike in offensive volume and the resulting win over a direct wild card rival emerged from a simple formula. According to Coach Todd McLellan, the Red Wings were “aggressive and fast.” Per Larkin, the victory boiled down to little more than effective fundamentals. “We skated, and I thought we were the better skating team,” the captain said. “We got up the ice, forechecked, and caused a lot of turnovers, and then we looked to shoot.”
It was a formula that Larkin modeled himself to set up the game’s first goal, exactly 13 minutes into the opening period, with a coast-to-coast effort that flaunted the best of his diverse toolkit.
Larkin forced a turnover in the defensive zone, then used his speed to carry the puck through a crowded neutral zone. He chipped the puck to the corner where he won it back himself, out-muscling rookie defenseman Lane Hutson to do so. Larkin then slid a pass through traffic to the tape of Jonatan Berggren in the slot, where Berggren got off a one-timed shot that beat Sam Montembeault to give the Red Wings a lead and validate a strong start that wanted only for a goal.
“[The forecheck] was for our line what got us going and what tends to get us going,” Larkin said after the game. He’d been sure to stress that a successful forecheck couldn’t just come from a forward line alone and had to include a defense pair too to make a five-man unit, but Larkin created the first goal as a one-man forechecking force.
