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The Detroit Red Wings stand on the precipice of being a not-very-good team. At 7-8-and-1, the Wings have fallen behind the Bruins, Bolts, Senators and Sabres in the Atlantic Division standings, and all four of those teams are succeeding in getting their shit together after middling starts.

Last night’s loss to Anaheim left some Red Wings fans in a panic–and some just angry–and tonight, the Red Wings faced a 9-6-and-3 Los Angeles Kings team attempting to assuage a 2-game losing streak.

On Saturday night in Los Angeles, Detroit tried really hard for about 5-10 minutes of a 4-1 loss to the Kings that was nothing less than clinical for Los Angeles. Dylan Larkin, who was visibly distressed and angry during the game’s stoppages, scored a gorgeous little backhand marker in the final minute of play, spoiling David Rittich’s shutout, but other than Cam Talbot stopping 37 of 40 shots, and Patrick Kane doing some stuff with Marco Kasper and Vladimir Tarasenko on a new line, Detroit didn’t get much done.

Detroit falls to 1-and-2 on their road trip, and they’ll need to beat the Sharks and beat them decisively to quiet the talk of firing the coach, the GM, and trading everyone away.

Continue reading Red Wings-Kings quick take: Dang.

The Detroit Red Wings began a three-game West Coast swing by visiting the Anaheim Ducks on Friday night. Anaheim had lost 5 of its previous 6 games, but its 5-8-and-2 record wasn’t that far removed from Detroit’s 7-7-and-1 mark.

As such, the Red Wings needed to at least earn a majority of the points from Anaheim, Los Angeles (on Saturday) and San Jose (on Monday night) to not head home from California looking like a struggling team.

When the rubber met the road on Friday night, the Red Wings fell on their faces, frankly, dropping a 6-4 decision to the Ducks–a team I don’t believe they respected.

Detroit raced out to a 3-1 lead on goals by Kasper, Berggren and Raymond, but Detroit surrendered 2 straight power play goals to the Ducks late in the 2nd and early in the 3rd, and Anaheim broke away after that, taking a 5-3 lead on bad goals against Lyon and bad play by a Red Wings team that was hobbled by the loss of Simon Edvinsson (knee bruise).

Ultimately, a Ducks empty-netter determined the course of the game, despite Alex DeBrincat’s late comeback marker, and the Red Wings will essentially head into their games vs. LA (tonight at 8 PM EST) and San Jose (Monday at 10:30 PM EST) needing to win both games to have a successful road trip.

This is what happens when you get out-worked and your special teams are not very good. Despite the 2 power-play goals for the Wings, their penalty-kill remains a liability, and on a night where their goaltending was “off,” they struggled.

Continue reading Red Wings-Ducks quick take: Damned by the Ducks

Enjoy:

Just a quick health update: I’ve spoken with a family physician via telehealth, and I’ve been prescribed a heavy dose of Amoxicillin, some Zyrtec and a sinus spray to help battle this virus and/or bacterial infection that I’ve been battling for the last month.

I’m doing everything I can to try to get back to work. I need to work to plain old pay for Thanksgiving dinner, and I miss the job very much. I hope to see you soon.

The Detroit Red Wings hoped to stabilize their 6-7-and-1 record against the 6-9-and-2 Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night. Pittsburgh was reeling from a 7-1 loss to Dallas on Monday, and the team had vowed to turn their ship around starting tonight.

The Red Wings, who had lost 2 straight games, were veering into territory where the rest of the Atlantic Division was getting its act together, so it was simply time for the Wings to begin to capitalize on the quality of competition it faced as it began a difficult 4-game road trip.

The road trip heads West after tonight in order for the Wings to battle Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Jose.

On Wednesday night, the Red Wings just barely defeated the desperate Pens in overtime, via a Simon Edvinsson goal that was truly glorious.

EDVINSSON CALLS GAME FOR DETROIT! 🤯

The 21-year-old Swedish rookie secures the @SUBWAYCanada OT winner for the Red Wings. pic.twitter.com/1A5jJBuMUG

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 14, 2024

Thankfully, the Red Wings won 3-2 in OT, but Detroit blew its 2-0 lead, and was challenged tremendously by the Penguins. Thankfully, Cam Talbot stopped 32 shots, many of them tremendous in their quality, and Berggren and Kane scored the regulation markers.

Detroit now sits at 7-7-and-1 as the Atlantic Division continues to push forward, and Detroit will have to push even harder as it faces the Pacific Division’s Ducks, Kings and Sharks–in a league where there are no pushovers any more.

Continue reading Red Wings-Penguins quick take: Edvinsson, Talbot help Wings squeeze out an OT win

Overnight, I’ve been thinking about the 6-7-and-1 Red Wings’ plight, and what the team should do after dropping a disappointing 4-0 decision against the New York Rangers.

In all honesty, I’d give the Red Wings’ coaches and management similar advice to what I’d tell a losing political party: proceed with caution, be patient and deliberate, and don’t jump to conclusions here.

Thanks to the jumbled-up nature of the Atlantic Division standings, the Red Wings are not already doomed to struggle their way through the Division of Death; in fact, the Red Wings own 2 games in hand on the 3rd-place Boston Bruins, who sit at 7-7-and-2, and the Bolts, Sabres and Senators sit 2, 2 and 1 point ahead of the Red Wings, respectively:

Continue reading Getting to fixing the Red Wings after a 6-7-and-1 start

Goaltender Ville Husso and the Red Wings were skating uphill into their match-up with the Jonathan Quick’s New York Rangers on Saturday night.

As Detroit hoped to snap a single-game losing streak after Friday’s loss to Toronto, the Rangers were planning on sweeping their 3-game season series against the Red Wings, bouncing back from an ugly 6-1 loss to Buffalo on Thursday, and adding to their 4-1-and-0 road record.

On Saturday night, the Red Wings lost an utterly demoralizing 4-0 decision to the New York Rangers, out-shooting New York 37-24, but finding themselves bedeviled by Jonathan Quick and an opportunistic Rangers team that capitalized on the Red Wings’ few mistakes.

Detroit drops to 6-7-and-1, and the Wings rather desperately need to generate some wins as they embark upon a 4-game road trip starting on next Wednesday in Pittsburgh.

Continue reading Red Wings-Rangers quick take: Quick, Rangers bedevil Wings

The Detroit Red Wings attempted to earn their 3rd straight win as they faced the Toronto Maple Leafs (7-5-and-2) in the “Hockey Hall of Fame” game on Friday night. Detroit was playing its 2nd game over the course of 3-games-in-4-nights slate, with the New York Rangers awaiting the Wings back in Detroit for a Saturday night tilt.

Toronto played without the services of Auston Matthews, who had an “upper-body injury,” and the Red Wings both recalled Ville Husso due to an injury to Alex Lyon, and they swapped out Jeff Petry for Justin Holl on defense.

On Friday night, the Red Wings seemed to be one bad bounce and one bad pass away from just about everything, and the pregame ceremony to honor the Hockey Hall of Fame’s inductees for 2024 was probably the highlight of the game, Dylan Larkin’s 1-1 goal excluded.

Detroit lost a 3-1 decision to John Tavares (2G), Mitch Marner (1G, 1A) and Anthony Stolarz (21 stops) and the Toronto Maple Leafs, playing a sleepy, stumbly, frustrating game as their 2-game winning streak snapped.

Continue reading Red Wings-Maple Leafs quick take: bad bounces, execution spoil Wings’ trip to TO

From the Detroit Red Wings;

RED WINGS RECALL VILLE HUSSO FROM GRAND RAPIDS UNDER EMERGENCY CONDITIONS

  … Goaltender Has Appeared in 133 Games with St. Louis and Detroit Since 2020-21 …

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today recalled goaltender Ville Husso from the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins under emergency conditions.

Husso, 29, has started one game with the Red Wings during the 2024-25 season. The 6-foot-3, 208-pound netminder has also posted a 2-0-0 record with a 1.23 goals-against average, a 0.958 save percentage and one shutout in three appearances with the Griffins this season. Husso was limited to 19 appearances with Detroit in 2023-24, logging a 9-5-2 record with a 3.55 goals-against average and an 0.892 save percentage. He also stopped all 25 shots he faced with the Griffins on Jan. 26 against the Belleville Senators during a conditioning stint. Originally selected by the St. Louis Blues in the fourth round (94th overall) of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft, Husso has compiled a 69-41-16 record with a 3.03 goals-against average, a 0.902 save percentage and seven shutouts in 133 appearances with the Blues and Red Wings since 2020-21. Additionally, Husso has posted a 53-54-16 record with a 2.65 goals-against average, a 0.910 save percentage and 12 shutouts in 133 AHL games with the Chicago Wolves, San Antonio Rampage and Griffins, earning a place on the AHL All-Rookie Team in 2017-18. 

Continue reading Press release: Ville Husso recalled under emergency conditions

Evan Sabourin, Tony Wolak, Devin Little and myself discuss the Red Wings’ recent performance vs. Chicago, the Edvinsson-Seider pairing’s success and the team’s identity in the latest episode of The Flying Octopus podcast: