Red Wings-Mammoth Tweetcap: Utah spears the Wings

The Detroit Red Wings closed out their pre-Olympic break schedule with a match-up against the offensively potent Utah Mammoth on Wednesday evening.

With the Canadiens, Sabres and the rest of the Atlantic Division hot on their tail, Detroit would have to play a really strong game to match up with the Mammoth’s balanced attack.

On Wednesday night in Salt Lake City, the Red Wings were just a little too flat at the start, their power play was too inefficient, and they made Karl Vejmelka look too good in the Mammoth crease (while John Gibson was only OK against the speedy Mammoth).

Detroit lost 4-1 heading into the Olympic break, with Dylan Larkin scoring the team’s only goal.

If you believe Twitter, Larkin was totally at fault for everything that went wrong with the team, too, because he dared to slash back at Nick Schmaltz because Schmaltz speared Larkin in the balls off a faceoff, but I suppose that’s a matter of opinion.

Anyway, the Wings don’t go into the break with a great record of late, but they need the rest pretty badly as they’ve already played 58 games.

PREGAME: John Gibson and Karl Vejmelka led their respective teams out onto the ice at the Delta Center…

The Mammoth dropped their lineup Tweet as soon as warmups begin…

While the Wings waited until their starters were ready to go:

1ST PERIOD:

The teams dressed the following starters and lineups:

GOAL: Only 57 seconds into the 1st period, John Gibson rimmed the puck around the back of the goal to the right wing half boards for Axel Sandin Pellikka; Andrew Copp reversed the flow from behind the goal, trying to find Alex DeBrincat on the left wing, and instead, Sean Durzi would fire the puck through Gibson to make it 1-0.

Utah 1, Detroit 0: Durzi (5) unassisted at 57 seconds of the 1st period.

PENALTY: Ben Chiarot was called for a spurious delay of game penalty at 6:32 of the 1st period.

PENALTY: Dylan Larkin was called for hacking Schmaltz’s stick in half after Schmaltz got away with spearing Dylan Larkin’s testicles after a faceoff. 7:50 1st.

GOAL: And Nick Schmaltz would score in the slot as Clayton Keller and Barrett Hayton set Schmaltz up with a small-area set of passing.

Utah 2, Detroit 0: Schmaltz (23) from Hayton (14) and Keller (37) at 8:11 1st, PPG, 5 on 3.

NO GOAL: Ben Chiarot scored at 10:40 of the 1st, but the goal from the blueline was negated because the Wings’ dump-in hit the curved glass off the Utah bench, which is not “in play.”

PENALTY: Barrett Hayton took a penalty at 15:09 for hooking Jacob Bernard-Docker, who was “hooked” numbers-first into the end boards.

GOALIE PULL: With 1.3 seconds left in the 1st, Utah pulled Vejmelka to try and win the deep zone faceoff and score 6-on-5. They did not win the draw.

2ND PERIOD:

PENALTY: Travis Hamonic was called for tripping a Mammoth player at 2:33 of the 2nd period.

FIGHT:

PENALTIES: Travis Hamonic was hit from behind by Chris Tanev, and Hamonic got a couple of pops in before Tanev went down and he stopped the fight at 5:54 of the 2nd.

PENALTY: Alex DeBrincat was getting hacked and held all night long, and Dylan Guenther got caught for a hook at 14:51 of the 2nd period.

PENALTY: With 57.1 seconds left in the 2nd period/19:02 elapsed, Nate Schmidt hooked Elmer Soderblom’s hands.

3RD PERIOD:

GOAL: Off a scrum at the Wings’ bench, Ben Chiarot was punched from behind into the Wings’ bench, affording Dylan Guenther an unobstructed charge toward the net. Axel Sandin Pellikka chose to give Guenther to the goaltender, and Mason Appleton did a shitty job of checking Guenther, who fired a shot through the 5-hole of Gibson.

Utah 3, Detroit 0: Guenther (25) unassisted at 4:40 3rd period.

PENALTY: Nick DeSimone got caught flicking the puck over the glass at 14:21 of the 3rd. With Detroit down 3-0, either it was the start of a massive comeback, or a blip over the course of a difficult stretch of games for the Wings.

GOALIE PULL: Detroit pulled Gibson with 5:39 left because they needed the offense.

GOAL: Dylan Larkin was able to put home the rebound of a Moritz Seider blast that went off the back boards and snuck out into the slot.

Utah 3, Detroit 1: Larkin (26) from Seider (31) and Kane (25) at 15:52 3rd period, PPG.

GOALIE PULL: John Gibson headed back to the bench with 3:34 remaining in the 3rd.

GOAL: Clayton Keller was the beneficiary of a lost board battle in the offensive zone, scoring the empty-netter at 17:42 of the 3rd.

Utah 4, Detroit 1: Keller (17) from Schmaltz (30) and Crouse (15) at 17:42.

STATISTICS: Here are the Game Summary and Event Summary:

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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!