The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan posted an off-day notebook which reflects upon the Stadium Series’ unpleasant ending, and the second part of Kulfan’s article doesn’t discuss the Justin Danforth penalty-turned-game-winning-goal, with Kulfan looking forward to this week–a week where the Red Wings host the Hurricanes and Utah HC before on Tuesday and Thursday, before battling the Washington Capitals on Trade Deadline Friday:
For many fans on social media, these two losses to Columbus bore a painful resemblance to last season, when the Wings suffered a brutal seven-game losing streak which stung the Wings in the standings and played a part in them missing the playoffs on the final game of the season by a tiebreaker. Captain Dylan Larkin, who rebounded from a subpar game Thursday, believes the Wings learned from last season’s late-season slide.
“We’ve been there before, and there’s experience we gained through that,” Larkin said. “We control our own destiny. We played well (Saturday); we deserved better.”
If the Wings are to end an eight-year playoff drought, it won’t be easy. They have the toughest remaining schedule in the NHL in terms of win percentage, and 13 of the final 22 games (including five of the final six) are on the road.
[Coach Todd] McLellan doesn’t want the Wings to be focusing on any of that right now, but rather how to better manage games. It’s a characteristic the Wings haven’t yet mastered.
“We’ve gone on two, seven-game winning streaks, kind of seen it all in 26, 27 games,” said McLellan, of the span since he took over Dec. 26. “But I do believe we have work to do in understanding the ebbs and flows of a game, the ups and downs, the situations of when we should swing for the fences and sometimes we should just punt and defend a little bit. We’re caught in between a few times. There’s a huge difference between playing on your toes and being aggressive and being impatient. We got a little impatient at times (Saturday).”
As Kulfan notes, the Red Wings play the Hurricanes three times down the stretch, and that’s scary, but the Red Wings seem to understand that they’ve got to take the two losses to Columbus over the past three days and learn from them:
“Everyone wanted it (victory) on the bench for each other; the vibes are great,” forward Patrick Kane said of Saturday’s near comeback. “But we just didn’t get it done. Obviously we need to be better in those game-winning type situations to make a play here or there, play it safe and make sure we’re at least getting a point in those situations. Especially when you come back, it’s almost even more disheartening to lose that way.”
Continued; if I may be honest, I wanted more impatience in the offensive zone on Saturday night. The Red Wings were far too comfortable sending perimeter shots into an unscreened Elvis Merzlikins, and not pursuing rebounds when the Blue Jackets’ physical defensemen put up a fight, and that’s not good enough for me. 84 shot attempts included.
