The Detroit Red Wings attempted to build upon Saturday night’s win over the Carolina Hurricanes as they faced off against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday…morning…opening up a 2-games-in-2-days series against the Wings’ old Central Division foe.

The Red Wings’ superb start did not find support in the form of a sloppy finish, so the Red Wings blew a 1-0 lead, trailed 3-1 by 6:26 in the 3rd, and Detroit was able to score a disputed goal very late in the 3rd to make it 3-2, but that’s all that a sloppy, indecisive Wings team had against a very motivated 0-and-2 Blue Jackets team. As a result, the Wings are 1-and-2 heading into tomorrow night’s rematch vs. Columbus.

Both teams posted their projected lines and starting goaltenders ahead of the game…

Good news for the organization, per Fox Sports Detroit’s John Keating:

.@JohnKeatingFSD just reported that Alex Biega cleared waivers. That’s 13 minutes early.— George Malik (@georgemalik) January 18, 2021

#RedWings defenseman Alex Biega cleared waivers today. He can be assigned to the taxi squad now.— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) January 18, 2021

Rut roh:

Fabri and Erne out due to COVID-19 protocols for today’s game. #RedWings— Justin Rose (@JRoseWXYZ) January 18, 2021

Rasmussen in for Fabbri. Nielsen in for Erne today. #RedWings vs. Blue Jackets at noon.— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) January 18, 2021

#RedWings lines/D pairs:
Bertuzzi-Larkin-Mantha
Ryan-Rasmussen-Zadina
Namestnikov-Filppula-Gagner
Brome-Glendening-Nielsen
Hronek-Nemeth
DeKeyser-Merrill
Staal-Stecher
Greiss starting
Bernier pic.twitter.com/kIgJLqW5nZ— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) January 18, 2021

As part of the lead-up to today’s Red Wings-Blue Jackets game on NBCSN, Pro Hockey Talk’s James O’Brien wondered if the Red Wings could be too good for their own collective sake this season:

Barring an incredible change of fortunes, the Detroit Red Wings are most likely looking for the future, even while playing in the present. With that in mind, there is such thing as the Red Wings playing too well.

Theoretically, the Red Wings could see growth from players like Filip Zadina, ride the Dylan Larkin-fueled top line, and take advantage of hot goaltending to play better than expected.

There are advantages to being competitive. After all, rebuilding teams eventually need to start winning. Getting blown out all the time can break spirits, and create bad habits.

Look at the Tim Murray-era Sabres and you can see the ways things can go wrong, even when you’re doing things right on paper.

Continued

MLive’s Ansar Khan welcomes Monday morning with an article discussing the possible impact of the Zadina-Fabbri-Ryan line on the Red Wings’ rather desperate need for reliable secondary scoring:

“They all have the offensive ability to be a top-six type line in the NHL,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “You hope they can feed off each other, you hope their offensive acumen complements each other. We needed to make sure Fabbri can play with the tenacity to get the puck, that Zadina can play with the tenacity to go get the puck. Bobby has a lot of experience and can help those guys in a lot of situations.

“I thought Bobby skated really well [Saturday], which is an important thing for him. He’s not a natural unreal skater, he’s a guy who has to work at it. I think he’s put himself in real good shape and worked real hard this summer with a skating coach. That would have been my only concern, is there enough speed on the line? Is there enough to go get pucks? I thought they did a good job with it.”

If this line can be a consistent scoring threat, the Red Wings can keep intact the top line of Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha and Tyler Bertuzzi.

“We just feed well off each other, from off the ice to on the ice,” Fabbri said. “That’s huge. When you connect off the ice things become much easier on the ice. As you start to learn where each other is going to be on the ice, each other’s tendencies, that’s when you build that chemistry. You play a little quicker when you know where someone’s going to be, and you know what play you’re going to make when you get it. Just a good mixture of size, speed, skill.”

Continued

Of prospect-related note in North America this Sunday:

In NCAA Hockey, Keith Petruzzelli stopped 17 shots to pitch his third straight shutout, helping the Quinnipiac Bobcats win 3-0 over Colgate. Carter Gylander stopped 16 of 19 shots for Colgate.

Petruzzelli has a shutout streak of over 198 minutes, per the recap:

Goaltender Keith Petruzzelli (Wilbraham, Massachusetts) picked up his third straight shutout as the No. 11/11 Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team shut out the Colgate Raiders, 3-0, Sunday evening at Frank Perrotti Jr. Arena.
 
Petruzzelli is the second goaltender in program history to record three consecutive shutouts after Michael Garteig ’16 in 2015-16, and Petruzzelli ran his shutout streak to 188:27 dating back to Jan. 9 against Clarkson.

Robert Mastrosimone finished even with 1 shot and Ethan Phillips did not play in the Boston University Terriers’ 4-2 win over UMass;

Patrick Holway finished at –2 with 1 shot and 2 minor penalties taken during the Merrimack College Warriors’ 5-3 loss to Boston College;

Sam Stange finished even with 2 blocked shots in the University of Wisconsin Badgers’ 4-0 win over the Arizona State University Sun Devils. Ryan O’Reilly did not play for Arizona State;

Antti Tuomisto finished at +1 with 2 shots in the University of Denver Pioneers’ 4-1 win over the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks. Cooper Moore finished at -1 with 2 shots for North Dakota.

The Detroit Red Wings host the Columbus Blue Jackets on a Monday matinee (12 PM EST on FSD locally, NBCSN nationally and 97.1 the Ticket).

During Sunday’s practice, the 1-and-1 Wings’ coach spoke quite warily of facing an 0-and-2 Blue Jackets team for their back-to-back series, as noted by the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan:

The regular season isn’t even a week old, and the Blue Jackets are already in must-win mode, according to rabid fans on social media.

Two straight losses to Nashville, plus a trade demand from star forward Pierre-Luc Dubois, and a suspect offensive attack all have Jackets fans fearing the worst.

But Blashilll sees it from a different perspective.

“We know how good Columbus is,” Blashill said. “They have one of the best defensive corps in the league, two of the top-10 defensemen in the league (Seth Jones, Grosse Pointe native Zach Werenski), they’re extremely well-coached and they play hard. It’ll be hard to get (scoring) opportunities against them. We have to compete like crazy for us to win. We competed fine the first night (a loss to Carolina), but the second night we competed like crazy (a victory) and that’s the way we have to play in order to win.”

There was very little news from the Red Wings’ Sunday practice, and there obviously won’t be morning skates before Monday’s game, so we’ll examine the Blue Jackets as best we can. Field Level Media scouted Columbus on Sunday afternoon:

The Detroit Red Wings will be hosting the 0-and-2 Columbus Blue Jackets for a 2-games-in-2-nights stretch beginning Monday at 12 PM EST (on NBCSN and FSD locally).

The Red Wings are aware of both the strangeness with which their body clocks will meet a noon start, as they told the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan…

“It’s definitely different,” forward Robby Fabbri said. “It takes me back to junior (hockey) days when you play in the afternoons. It’s like any other game, you get used to it and get adjusted to the time. You go through the same routine — just earlier in the day.”

A big consideration for an abnormal game-start switch, such as Monday’s game, is the pre-game meal — and what and when to eat.

Hockey players, generally, will have a meal high in carbohydrates and protein some 2-3 hours before a game. But pasta and salmon may not go down easily at 8 or 9 a.m.

“There’s obviously things game-wise that are different, (but) I would say in terms of body clock, this (noon) is the time we practice every day, and they’ve been doing it for months, so I don’t think it’s a huge adjustment,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “Both teams are in the same boat. They (Blue Jackets) have a little more travel involved (coming in from Nashville). Basically the meal you have, and the timing are a little bit different.”

And they’re wary of an 0-and-2 opponent, as Blashill told Kulfan and DetroitRedWings.com’s Brett McWethy:

After Sunday’s practice, Robby Fabbri spoke with the Red Wings’ media corps for over 9-and-a-half minutes…

And coach Jeff Blashill spoke with the media for 7 minutes and 45 seconds:

And, if you missed it…

Blashill says Djoos comes out of quarantine tomorrow. Obviously he’ll then need to get up to speed from there, and the Red Wings will need to get a look at him before figuring out what’s next for him— Max Bultman (@m_bultman) January 17, 2021

Of prospect-related note in Europe:

In the Swedish Allsvenskan, Malte Setkov finished at +1 with 2 shots in 18:43 played as AIK Stockholm lost 5-3 to Mora;

Gustav Berglund didn’t play in Vasteras IK’s 3-2 OT loss to Bjorkloven;

In the ICE Hockey League, Jesper Eliasson stopped 27 of 30 shots as the Red Bulls Salzburg lost 3-2 in overtime to VSV;

And in the Slovakian 2 League, Donovan Sebrango had an assist, finishing at +1 in HC Autoracz Levice’s 9-3 loss to Zilina.