Red Wings winner weekend creates “Game of the Year”: 5 thoughts

DETROIT – For weeks now, looking forward to this weekend on the Detroit Red Wings program has been a warned exercise.

The Carolina Hurricanes and the Florida Panthers – two of the best (and most difficult) teams of the League – represented all the reasons why the Red Wings could not afford to squander other games. And when Detroit squandered almost all his marching in the loss of stripes, this weekend against two Powerhouses he began to look like a potential nail in their coffin.

Instead? Both teams led to Detroit to Detroit, and the teams led to Detroit and the Red Wings managed their business. After all terror, Alex Debrincat was able to look forward to Tuesday’s match in Montreal and to say carefully: “It is probably the biggest game of the year”.

Now, it remains to be seen how significant it will be with hindsight. Detroit’s victory on Sunday pulled them back within four points from the Canadians for the last place of Jolly of the Eastern Conference for about an hour before Montreal’s victory in Nashville pushed the sign to six. It is still a terribly steep hill to climb, and Detroit’s path to the post -station is still a long -term shot.

But with a game in hand and that head-to-head race still left, the Red Wings can at least keep their dreams alive another day-the which is more than possible a week ago.

Some thoughts on how they did and what it would take to really make this late push.

1. Let’s start with those who were not on ice this weekend, because it is a fairly significant detail.

Carolina played the Red Wings without Jordan Staal and Andrei Svechnikov in the 5-3 victory of Detroit on Friday. Florida took the ice without any Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart or Gustav Forsling-for not talking about Aaron Ekblad, who is serving a suspension of 20 games to violate the terms of the program of substances that improve the performance of the League. A lot of talents is missing, especially Sunday.

So it was certainly a different aspect that faced the reigning champions of the Stanley Cup. Yet the red wings will not question too much, considering that they are desperate for each single point at this moment.

To listen to it also from Todd McLellan, that type of training dynamics can work in both ways in a game.

“What often happens is that workers have an opportunity,” McLellan said. “They were waiting for and I thought that their workers really worked tonight. I made myself difficult to perform the games. There was not much – and if I say it, I want to respectfully say to all the players in the game – there was less skills in the game, so there was more scramble play, there were more sticks that touched the morsels more, there were more scrums and there were more difficult to play.

Along those same lines, this was not the most beautiful game of the Red Wings. As McLellan said, “I think we have better.” And if they go to Montreal and actually make things interesting Tuesday, they will need better.

But in a game in practice they had to win, they take it regardless.

Cam Talbot has had an exceptional past for Detroit. (Tim Fuller / Imagn images)

2. The main reason why the Red Wings won Sunday was simple: Cam Talbot.

Talbot stopped 32 of 33 strokes, including a couple of spectacular saving late-princes with his paddle on Jesse Puljujärvi, and then he stretched to stop an Anton Lundell a timer from the right circle.

It seemed very similar to Save Talbot, on the Casey Mittelstadt of Boston late in the last seconds of last weekend and prevented the game from going to the extraordinary.

“It’s just desperation,” said Talbot. “Get as much body as possible on the other side of the network, save. Fortunately it has fallen right below me and I was able to cover it and not give them a second chance.”

Sunday was the fourth consecutive game that Talbot began and the fifth delivery in which he played after entering relief for Alex Lyon against the senators of Ottawa. In those five games, it has an absurd percentage of savings .945 – a huge step forward compared to the pause of the 4 nations, when it had only a percentage of savings of .869 from 22 to 22 February.

So what is McLellan see now from his goalkeeper?

“When Petr (Mrazek) arrived, and Alex (Lyon) entered and had a couple of departures or couple racing, Talbs had the opportunity to work on his game and rested,” McLellan said. “And now it seems fresh, it seems concentrated, his game is on. So maybe this has helped him. But whatever it is, we will need him to continue doing it.”

There is no doubt. For all the problems that red wings have, the goalkeeper is the only thing in the hockey that can cover everything. And while Detroit will have to be careful what they try to ride the 37 -year -old Talbot along the stretch, it has yet to give them a reason to look for elsewhere in this current race.

3. This year there have been some promising stories for the Red Wings, from the emergency of Marco Kasper and Albert Johansson as debutants to Lucas Raymond who establishes a new career in the score (75 points and the counting), but no player was constantly impact for Detroit as Deblincat.

Deblincat scored his 35th goal of the season on Sunday, an explosion of Power-Play established by Raymond, right in the wake of an even better look he missed. His 35 goals are the third more he has had in one season, and while his high career (41, twice) will be difficult to reach with only six games to play, threatening 40 is not out of the question for him.

It is already a nice leap from the 27 goals that has scored each of the last two seasons, and while Deblincat feels he has obtained “much more luck than disco” this season, there is more.

“I only think about consistency in my game,” he said. “I think I had a lot of calm in my comedy last year, and you know, this year I am just trying to do a better job of being consistent, just work hard even when he is not entering, and finding a way to get on the net and put them inside. … Sometimes you can play your best game and you can’t do your score, and you can’t play anything.

Show. Deblincat has been evident almost every night this season, whether or not. Recently he also fought 6 feet and 3 Andrew Peeke to go alone after a blow, certainly giving a spark to his team.

“Sometimes in some of those markers, there is a cheat element and not a total commitment to return to your final game,” McLellan said. “I don’t see him with cat. I think he’s always there.”

The trading for Deblincat two summers ago was the most effective non -Draft move that Steve Yzerman has created as Red Wings GM, and although it is not always easy to replicate a rfa of the hometown available, the success of Deblincat in Detroit should only strengthen the value of such large oscillations that go in this summer.

Even when Alex Deblincat has not scored, he makes the difference for the Red Wings. (Tim Fuller / Imagn images)

4. Two goals on Sundays were enough to win, but finding more offended five out of five continues to be an ancient point for these red wings. The goal of Deblincat came to the game of power, which he kept Detroit out all over the season, and the goal of JT Compher to do it 2-0 has arrived less than 30 seconds after another game of power had expired.

He is beating a dead horse, perhaps, but also in the low -score playoff games, the Red Wings cannot expect to get away too often. There are some obvious guilty they need most from the whole season, in particular Vladimir Tarasenko and Jonatan Berggen, none of whom recorded a shot on the door on Sunday. But also beyond that, the first six of Detroit will have to break out more outside the game.

Dylan Lankin has now done eight games without goals and only did a blow on the door on Sunday. Lankin seems to have fought through a sort of injury from the 4 nations, and McLellan recently said that Lankin had been “excavated” even earlier, describing Lankin as “pushing through” now. This certainly helps to put the quieter offensive section of Lankin in the context.

5. This team of Detroit has been crawl all year round – and also returning to previous years. They lost 11 out of 14 to put themselves in this precarious situation in April, but they also had two strips of victory with seven games under McLellan.

With points now in four consecutive, they seem to have slowed down the ship from that collapse of March. But now the key is to continue without being too intoxicated by a couple of victories against underwater teams.

“You just have to channel that energy in the right way,” said Talbot. “You can’t get too much, you can’t lower yourself too much, you have to stay in a certain sense.

If they can do it on Tuesday, their playoff dreams will begin to look a little more plausible.

(Top photo of Michael Rasmussen and Mackie Samoskevich: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)