Red Wings-Capitals wrap-up: after a long and wearying day (and loss to Washington), Detroit needs to regroup

The Detroit Red Wings lost their 5th straight game in the form of a 5-2 loss to the Washington Capitals on Friday night, collapsing despite taking a 2-0 lead to start the 1st period.

This is a difficult time of year–between the underwhelming trade deadline to the Red Wings’ post-Four Nations Face-Off struggles–and the Red Wings have 19 games left as they prepare to battle the hated Ottawa Senators on Monday.

So this was a weird one. Detroit took the lead only 45 seconds in, when Dylan Larkin clanked a puck off Logan Thompson’s helmet, and just under seven minutes later, Moritz Seider’s power play slapper yielded a 2-0 lead…

But things fell apart in the 3rd period, with Detroit both leading 2-1 and on the power play, as the Wings gave up the first of two short-handed goals against, as Aliaksei Protas deked his way around the aforementioned Seider and chipped a puck over Cam Talbot’s glove, tying the game at 2…

And it got worse from there.

More worryingly, both Dylan Larkin (who was able to return from his injury) and Simon Edvinsson (who left halfway through the 3rd period) got “banged up” by Capitals hits, and Detroit’s going to have 5 games in 9 nights after their two-day weekend, so the Wings will hope that Larkin and Edvinsson are okay to go for Monday’s it’s-all-but-a-must-win game against Ottawa.

Our friends from Washington, who the Red Wings will visit again on April 18th, and, who are in 2nd place in the NHL standings, were able to laugh off their slow start, as they told the Washington Post’s Bailey Johnson:

“Slow starts have been a bit of an issue for us,” defenseman Jakob Chychrun said. “Always great to be able to find your game after not playing your best in the first and going doing two early. We always find a way to fight back and get ourselves into the game. Tonight’s another good example of that.”

Just over two minutes after Seider’s goal, winger Brandon Duhaime dropped the gloves with Dominik Shine for his second fight in as many games. The fight brought players on both benches to their feet, but it didn’t produce much of a spark for the Capitals. Washington took until the final five minutes of the first period to start to find some life.

Winger Taylor Raddysh got the Capitals on the board at the 18:39 mark, finishing off his own rebound after a power move to the net in front of Talbot. Washington carried their late-period momentum into the second period, outshooting Detroit 9-4 and generating six scoring chances, but Talbot held strong to keep the Red Wings in the lead.

“One of the key moments in the game was the Raddysh goal at the end of the first period,” [Capitals coach Spencer] Carbery said. “It was not good in the first period, and the guys knew that. … We needed something to give us a little bit of momentum.”

With just 42 seconds left in the second period, center Pierre-Luc Dubois was sent to the box for kneeing Detroit’s Simon Edvinsson. The Capitals’ penalty kill didn’t allow a shot on the abbreviated portion of the power play before the period ended; the lone attempt was a shorthanded one for winger Aliaksei Protas that Detroit blocked.

That was perhaps an indication of what was to come. Less than a minute into the third period, Protas raced in on a shorthanded breakaway and beat Talbot over the glove into the upper corner of the net to tie the game.

“I knew Tom couldn’t get there, so I needed to do something for myself,” Protas said. “Sometimes the muffins go in, you know? Once in a year it goes in. Lucky enough it got through.”

Told Protas called his shot a muffin, Carbery laughed and replied, “Love to see his hard one when he catches it.”

WashingtonCapitals.com’s Mike Vogel picks it up from there:

At 5:17, Protas struck again, finishing off a 200-foot sequence in a matter of seconds. John Carlson stretched a feed to Connor McMichael at the Detroit line, and he sent Protas in for his second goal in less than five minutes, making it a 4-2 Washington lead at 5:17.

Before the midpoint of the third, Protas sent Wilson in all alone on a shorthanded breakaway, and Wilson carved to the middle and five-holed Talbot at 9:19 to complete the scoring. Protas and Wilson set up each other’s shorties.

“I think it’s just kind of feeling of each other,” says Protas of the chemistry between the duo. “First of all, there’s no cheat, and we just try to have that feeling sometimes, knowing that it goes by and either there’s a chance to go on the rush and do something; we are always trying.

“Tom is a real hard working player, really fast, and when he puts the pressure on, I think the power play unit is not happy with it and kind of scared for sure. And with Tom, when you go on the rush, you know you always have a chance, because he’s a pretty skilled player.”

With 29 goals on the season, Wilson is now on the cusp of his first 30-goal season in the NHL. He has nine lamplighters in his last 11 games.

Coach Carbery offered a simpler explanation for the Caps’ slow start:

“We got the 8:30 start tonight from our group,” quips Carbery. “I honestly thought one of the key moments in the game was the Raddysh goal at the end of the first period. Because it was not good in the first period, and the guys knew that, so they’re trying to work through it, talk to each other, help each other out, say the right things. But we needed something to give us a little bit of momentum. The Duhaime fight was good; so he’s doing everything he can, but we needed a spark. The fight, great. The goal was huge.”

It was, and so is the win, Washington’s 41st of the season, one more than it managed all of last season. The Caps reached the 90-point plateau with Friday’s win, and they’re now a single point shy of matching last season’s total, with 19 games to go. They’ve also followed up last week’s three-game slide with a three-game winning streak.

With their win over the Wings, the Caps have now defeated each of the other 15 teams in the Eastern Conference at least once this season. And each of the Caps’ three victories this week came at the expense of a team fighting for one of the two wild card playoff berths in the east.

“At this time of year, any loss is tough,” says Wings coach Todd McLellan. “I think the way we lost is what stings more than anything. Our power play has been outstanding all year; the last two games I thought we really gave back a lot of momentum when we needed it. Obviously starting on a clean sheet in the third period, you’re counting on at least establishing some momentum for the period. A bad turnover, and it’s in our net. A few minutes later, we get another opportunity, and it’s in our net again. That really sucks the life out of the group.”

The Red Wings’ players and coach were understandably frustrated after the game, as they told NHL.com’s Harvey Valentine:

Dylan Larkin and Moritz Seider scored for the Red Wings (30-27-6), who have lost five straight and were coming off a 4-2 loss to the Utah Hockey Club on Thursday. Lucas Raymond had two assists, and Cam Talbot made 23 saves.

“We just got to get a win, get off the schneid, find a way to win and then continue to find ways to win, not find ways to lose,” Larkin said. “We’re not scoring enough. We’ve got to get to the hard areas. Tonight, we didn’t shoot. We had a good start, and then we stopped shooting the puck and that cost us.”

Larkin gave the Red Wings a 1-0 lead 43 seconds into the first period, scoring from behind the goal line when his shot deflected in off Thompson’s mask.

Seider made it 2-0 at 7:00 when he scored five-hole on a slap shot from the top of the slot on a power play.

“Great start for us,” Red Wings forward Patrick Kane said. “You couldn’t ask for a better start, and we got one on the power play and a 2-0 lead. We played well in the first, had some other looks too and just kind of lost momentum as the game went on.”

There’s this, from coach McLellan…

“A bad turnover and it’s in our net and then a few minutes later we get another opportunity and it’s in our net again, so that really sucks the life out of the group,” Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. “If I was going to target anything when you’re playing three games in four nights, when you get up on the man advantage, you’d better be able to at least play even.”

And this, from Tom Wilson:

“I think once we got to Caps hockey, once we got to executing our game plan, getting pucks in, wearing them down,” Wilson said. “Obviously they played yesterday so as we felt that momentum shift we were kind of just blood in the water and wanted to just keep taking it to them.”

To his credit, the captain stepped up while speaking with the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan…

Larkin, the Wings’ captain, blamed himself for the turnover that led to Protas’ shorthanded goal that tied the game.

“I get the puck on my stick, a play I’ve made a hundred times and I just turned it over,” Larkin said. “That’s unacceptable. You tell yourself, ‘Don’t turn it over, don’t turn it over, don’t turn it over’ and what do you do? You turn it over. Just playing a mature game and I started it off for our team and it’s unacceptable by me.”

And Kulfan isn’t kidding here:

The Wings play Monday in Ottawa, in what amounts to possibly the most important game of the season to date if the Wings plan on staying in the playoff race.

“We didn’t go to the mall and lose our confidence,” McLellan said. “It doesn’t fall out of your pocket. You tend to gain and then you give it back as a group. So, if we’re talking like that, we have to look at each other or look at ourselves and figure out what we can do better individually and collectively.

“We need to go to Ottawa and we’re going to have to play a real hard game there. They’re a real good hockey club right now playing good hockey. That’s the way it should be at this time of the year. It’s hard at this time of the year. Our guys are learning that. I’m not sure everybody quite understands that. But clearly we have a lot to work on and a lot to learn.”

Coach McLellan also addressed the Wings’ spotty goaltending of late, which is one of the reasons that the team reacquired Petr Mrazek on Friday. Trouble utilizing 3 goalies again? Nope.

“No (because) we’re looking for one. We’re not looking for three,” McLellan said. “We’re looking for one to step up and grab the net and, as far as I’m concerned, he can run the net for the next 19 (games) if there’s somebody that does it and has the energy to do it. But we’re looking for one. We’re not looking for three. It’s not a problem at all.”

McLellan added forward Carter Mazur’s injury in Thursday’s loss against Utah – Mazur was placed on the injured list – could be long-term.

“He has an injury that’s a little more serious and he’s probably going to be out for some time,” said McLellan, adding it’s uncertain if Mazur will return this season. “Well, let’s hope so. Put it that way.”

As MLive’s Ansar Khan pointed out, the Wings are at least blessedly close to a playoff spot, mostly due to luck…

The Detroit Red Wings have gone five games without a point, and they’re still only one point out of a playoff spot.

They’re struggling, but the competition isn’t gaining separation.

…

The Red Wings (30-27-6, 66 points) have lost five in a row in regulation for the first time this season. They are one point behind Ottawa and the New York Rangers for the second wild card spot.

The problem here is simple: the Rangers and Senators play against each other today at 12:30 PM EST, and somebody’s going to pull away.

The Red Wings have allowed four or more goals in eight of their past 10 games. They visit Ottawa on Monday (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network).

Among DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills’ post-game quotes are the following:

McLellan on the third period

“We talked about the power play. We enter, we just carelessly throw one into the middle and it comes back the other way. Then, the second one we’re pinching and to keep a puck alive, you got to gamble a little bit, but no cover at all. Everybody just froze in one spot. The one guy that read the play was Wilson. Those were the mistakes on the power play.”

Larkin on the moves Detroit’s top brass made before the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline

“The message is the message. We didn’t do a whole lot, but I think it’s honestly been hard to follow today because of our game and back-to-back turnaround. You look at it and what’s going on around the League – it’s pretty wild with all the big teams loading up. It is what it is right now. We got a group in here that we believe can win. We just got to start doing it.”

Kane on Detroit’s five-game losing streak

“Every game is different. There’s been games where we’ve played well and there’s been games where maybe we didn’t play as well as our opponent. Sometimes, you got to find a way to win those games too.”

Kane on picking themselves up and looking ahead to Monday’s game in Ottawa

“We have no choice. Nineteen games left in the year. We have no choice. We have to be ready for the next one.”

Or, as the Detroit News’s Bob Wojnowski put it, summarizing our day…

Maybe the Wings piece something together the final 20 games and chase the playoffs until the final day, as they did a year ago before losing out by a point. That ratcheted expectations, perhaps prematurely. Of course a postseason berth would be a boost for fans and a franchise that went to the playoffs 25 straight years not that long ago, and now are mired in an eight-year drought.

But there’s no mandate from owner Chris Ilitch, who’s endorsing the same steady approach as he has with the Tigers, which is starting to work. Yzerman’s job isn’t in jeopardy, nor should it be, as long as his touted prospects fulfill their promise. The Wings are too far down this path to alter course, although Yzerman probably looks longingly at teams in position to go for it.

“Look at Florida, Toronto, Tampa, Washington, they’re going for it,” Yzerman said. “They’re all-in trying to win the Stanley Cup, giving up their future assets. … When you’re ready to start using your top prospects and go all-in is when you believe you’re ready to win the Cup. We’re not there today. If we’re there by good fortune next year, that’s something we’d have to consider.”

Everyone keeps waiting for a sign that it’s time. You’ll know it when you see it, but this wasn’t it.

Steve Yzerman isn’t going to be fired if the Red Wings miss the playoffs this year, or next year, or the year after that. He’s the GM for as long as necessary to turn this franchise around, per Mrs. Ilitch and Chris Ilitch, and it’s up to us to believe, or not believe, that the turnaround is eventually going to happen…

But in the interim, as Detroit Hockey Now’s Tim Robinson noted, the Wings and the rest of us get Saturday off, because 3 games in 4 nights, and 2 in 2, is a lot to ask of the human body and human mind:

The Wings are off Saturday before they travel to Ottawa to meet the Senators on Monday.

Sunday’s practice will be their first chance to see Petr Mrazek and Craig Smith, acquired on a trade Friday

“The first thing they’ve got to do is rest,” McLellan said. ‘They’re still humans. We need to have a good practice on Sunday and understand what we’re facing against the Senators.”

The Wings are a little banged up as well.

Simon Edvinsson left the ice early in the third and did not return. Larkin twisted his leg toward the end of the second period and limped off the ice but took a regular shift in the third.

Multimedia:

Highlights: NHL.com posted a 10:08 highlight clip: