The Detroit Red Wings lost a 5-3 decision to the undermanned Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night, and the Red Wings lost in tremendously frustrating fashion, due to a combination of self-inflicted wounds in the form of defensive mistakes and some shaky goaltending by Alex Nedeljkovic with his former team, which played with only 16 skaters due to COVID and cap concerns.
This was frustrating for several reasons:
For the second time in a row (the loss in St. Louis on December 9th was the first), the Red Wings surrendered a sloppy two points to a team that was short skaters, and surrendered a “first goal to a young kid” (this time, Jack Drury; last time, Nathan Walker x3) on top of it;
For the fricking 11th time out of 15 road games (Detroit has already played 30 times this season, 15 at Little Caesars Arena, and 15 away from LCA), the Red Wings’ play dropped considerably on individual and collective bases in terms of consistency, attention to detail, general confidence and especially fit and finish, dropping Detroit to 4-10-and-1 away from the Pizzarena (where Detroit has 10 of its 14 wins);
And for the fourth time this month (the Wings are 0-and-3 on the road, and gave up a stinker to Nashville back on the 7th at LCA), the officiating was spurious, affording the opponent chances that the Red Wings did not have. The gullibility of the linesmen on faceoffs and icings alone (Detroit won 40% of the sixty faceoffs dropped on Thursday) was infuriating; the lack of “fit and finish” on the officials’ part when it came to cross-checks, hooks, holds, hacks and whacks…
It was sure a “road game” in that sense of the term, too.
But the Red Wings can only blame themselves for the 5-3 loss, and attempt to move forward as they play three more times (1 of which is on the road) before Christmas, and 6 more times (3 on the road, in total) before the end of 2021.
The relentless condensed Olympic Year schedule isn’t going to let up, regardless of whether players actually go to the Olympics, and the Wings need to take as many lessons as they can out of their games, focus on reassessing and implementing their lessons during the learning sessions that are practices, and then they’ve gotta “move on to the next one.”
For the Hurricanes, who did indeed skate with 16 skaters due to salary-cap related reasons, and without six of their regular players, including Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov, due to COVID protocols, Thursday’s game will be one to remember, as they told NHL.com’s Kurt Dusterberg:
Continue reading Red Wings-Hurricanes wrap-up: Wings drop a frustrating game to the shorthanded Canes
