Red Wings-Lighting Tweetcap: Tampa Bay out-streaks resilient Detroit in overtime

The Detroit Red Wings’ playoff push is over, but two games remain on the regular season schedule, starting with Monday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning…

And it’s always instructive to see how a team responds when it’s got nothing to play for other than pride and jobs on next year’s team.

On Monday night at Benchmark International Arena, the Red Wings displayed all the good and bad points of their 2025-2026 regular season’s worth of play via a 4-3 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Wings took a 1-0 lead, gave up 3 straight goals to go down 3-1, rallied for a point with a late goal by Alex DeBrincat that happened to include Patrick Kane’s 1,400th NHL point…

But in overtime, a mess-up in terms of coverage in the offensive zone–much like several of the Wings’ coverage mistakes that resulted in goals against in regulation–yielded a 2-on-1 for Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point, and with Andrew Copp the last man back, Detroit and Cam Talbot stood no chance of stopping the Bolts from taking a 4-3 OT decision.

PREGAME: Cam Talbot and Andrei Vasilevskiy led their respective teams out onto the ice (and the Red Wings’ social media team didn’t do their usual goalie-leads-team Tweet, so here’s the Bolts’ Twitter video thereof…)

The Lightning posted their patchwork lineup in full…

And the Red Wings posted their lineup as well:

1ST PERIOD:

The teams dressed the following starters and lineups:

GOAL: Off a broken play, Ben Chiarot held the puck in the offensive zone at the left blueline, he shot the puck like a chip pass off Vasilevskiy’s glove, the rebound went to J.T. Compher who laterally passed the puck to David Perron, and Perron tucked the puck into an empty net.

Detroit 1, Tampa Bay 0: Perron (13) from Compher (17) and Chiarot (9) at 5:31 1st period.

PENALTY: Charle-Edouard D’Astous sat for slashing on Carter Mazur at 8:22 of the 1st period.

GOAL? At the Bolts’ side boards, Patrick Kane retrieved a puck and chipped it across the ice, where Moritz Seider blasted the puck off the Bolts’ Vasilevskiy, and as Vasilevskiy tripped over Andrew Copp’s skate, Simon Edvinsson jammed it home to give Detroit a 2-0 lead?

The goal would have read…

Detroit 2, Tampa Bay 0: Edvinsson (10) from Seider (51) and Kane (41) at 15:30 1st period.

CHALLENGE: However, the Lightning challenged for goaltender interference as Andrew Copp was tied up by Ryan McDonagh and Vaslievskiy tripped over Copp’s skate at the top of the crease.

NO GOAL: The refs felt that Copp interfered with Vasilevskiy.

Sportsnet didn’t post a Tweet or YouTube clip of the no-goal call, but they did link a non-embeddable video clip thereof.

GOAL: Off a puck scrum where Emmitt Finnie battled for the puck with Scott Sabourin, Sabourin won the battle, Oliver Bjorkstrand broke out Conor Geekie with a fine outlet pass, and Geekie’s breakaway speed BLAZED away from and through Ben Chiarot and Justin Faulk. Geekie skated in and tucked the puck through Cam Talbot at 17:05.

Detroit 1, Tampa Bay 1: Geekie (1) from Bjorkstrand (20) and Sabourin (4) at 17:05 1st.

2ND PERIOD:

PENALTY: J.J. Moser tripped Moritz Seider at center ice at 4:36 of the 2nd period, right in front of the referee.

This kind of bullshit was happening behind the play, too:

PENALTY: J.J. Moser then dove over Alex DeBrincat’s stick, tripping himself up, and Alex DeBrincat sat for interference at 9:19 of the 2nd for tripping.

NO GOAL: Off a rush by Emil Lilleberg, Conor Geekie jabbed the puck into the net as Lilleberg ran Cam Talbot over, so Tampa’s would-be 2-1 goal at 13:19 did not count.

GOAL: Late in the 2nd period, Tampa Bay got the Red Wings scrambled positionally in their own zone, with Emmitt Finnie and Ben Chiarot as the last men back and Justin Faulk in the high slot, and the Wings’ man-on-man defensive coverage yielded a goal against as a result.

Ryan McDonagh, who brought Finnie with him down low, laterally passed a rebound puck through Finnie’s legs to Erik Cernak, and Cernak chipped a back-door goal over Talbot.

Detroit 1, Tampa Bay 2: Cernak (3) from McDonagh (15) and Girgensons (10) at 15:53 2nd period.

GOAL: Tampa Bay got the Wings’ man-on-man coverage screwed up again as Nikita Kucherov sent a shot over the goal and Andrew Copp chased Kucherov behind the goal, where Kucherov took the puck off the back boards, retrieved it and centered it to Jake Guentzel, who was all alone in the slot. Bang bang, 3-1 Tampa Bay.

Detroit 1, Tampa Bay 3: Guentzel (38) from Kucherov (86) and Moser (22) at 18:03 2nd period.

3RD PERIOD:

GOAL: Justin Faulk fired a slot shot wide of the Lightning goal, but Faulk shot was pursued by James van Riemsdyk, who tried to laterally pass the rebound off the back boards to Marco Kasper. The pass didn’t work, but JvR chased Kasper’s shot behind the net, circled and found Kasper on the left side of the net, giving Detroit a 3-2 goal as Kasper jammed one home.

No Twitter video, just a link to an NHL.com video of the goal. The Wings’ social media team was absent tonight.

Detroit 2, Tampa Bay 3: Kasper (9) from van Riemsdyk (16) and Faulk (24) at 2:56.

PENALTY: Charle-Edouard D’Astous was called for playing with illegal equipment at 10:28 of the 3rd period.

INJURY: Dylan Larkin was tripped, landed on his right elbow/hand heavily, and had to leave the bench very early in the power play.

GOAL: Patrick Kane swiped a puck at center ice, stealing the puck from the Bolts defenseman, Lillegren, and Kane charged up the ice with Alex DeBrincat 2-on-0, Kane fed DeBrincat and DeBrincat scored goal 41 and Kane’s assist yielded point 1,400 for #88.

Detroit 3, Tampa Bay 3: DeBrincat (41) from Kane (41) at 15:16 of the 3rd period.

RETURN: Dylan Larkin returned for the final 90 seconds of the 3rd period.

IN OVERTIME…

GOAL: Alex DeBrincat raced up the ice with Andrew Copp and Moritz Seider and DeBrincat was barely toed away by Vasilevskiy, but on the right wing side, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov blazed away from DeBrincat and Seider, and a pair of lateral passes eluded Andrew Copp, so Point found Kucherov at the back door, and that was that.

Detroit 3, Tampa Bay 4, OT: Kucherov (44) from Point (32) at 27 seconds of OT.

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!