Red Wings 3, Penguins 2 (OT): Game Notes

Last night in Pittsburgh, the visiting Detroit Red Wings (7-7-1) pulled back to .500 with a 3-2 overtime victory over the host Penguins.

The game started according to a familiar pattern from Saturday night for the visitors: The Red Wings exerted command over the run of play out of the gate but failed to capitalize on the chances they created for the duration of the first period.  In the second, however, a breakthrough came off the stick of Jonatan Berggren, who finished off a Vladimir Tarasenko pass to make it 1-0 Detroit exactly one minute into the period.  Four minutes and 15 seconds later, Patrick Kane doubled the lead on the power play, and the Red Wings appeared on their way to a smooth road victory over the struggling Penguins.

Unfortunately, easy nights don’t exist for Detroit at the moment, and, with a slew of Red Wing turnovers fueling the comeback, Pittsburgh leveled the game by the second intermission courtesy of Bryan Rust and Anthony Beauvillier.  In overtime, the Red Wings found a way to grab their two points anyway, with Simon Edvinsson scoring his second goal of the season and first career OT winner to ice the game 3-2.  The good news for Detroit is that the way things are tracking, there’s no need to fret about spotting the Penguins a loser point, considering Pittsburgh’s distance from the playoff cut line.

Cam Talbot delivered another strong performance in net, making 31 saves on 33 shots to help secure the victory.  For more on how the Red Wings pulled it off, let’s dive in a bit deeper:

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The Game in One Quote

In that sentiment, Jonatan Berggren was describing the long road to his first goal of the season, but it applies to his team as well, particularly coming off a game against the Rangers in which Detroit created a bevy of chances but failed to convert on a single one.  Of course, at an individual level, that dynamic is more acute.  As a team, the Red Wings have struggled to consistently create quality offense, but that hasn’t been the case for Berggren individually.  He’s done that all season, and going back to the past two seasons, for whatever his defensive warts, there’s been no denying his offensive gifts.

After a Nov. 2 win over Buffalo, Derek Lalonde spoke to the sense of Berggren consistently winding up on the wrong side of puck luck in the season’s early going, saying, “He’s a little bitten today, in his whole game.  I think he has one assist in 16, 17 games [including the pre-season], but he’s producing chances. We have a practice rep we hammer all week of low to high, quick off the stick, find a stick. He does everything right. It goes off his stick. It goes bottom crossbar. Now you’re starting to feel for him, but if he keeps getting these looks, it’s a positive. He’s produced in this league in the past. He played himself offensively probably out of the American Hockey League. I’d be more concerned if he wasn’t getting those looks. He’s getting those looks. I think it’s a positive. I think he’ll start producing some offense here.”

As of this writing, Berggren leads the Red Wings by five-on-five expected goal share (52.56%) and individual expected goals (2.6) (both stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick).  Now, Berggren has broke through the curse and moved from the expected goal sheet to the actual one.

Even the breakthrough itself offered a reminder of the breaks that hadn’t gone his way.  The goal came on what was effectively a do over a similar sequence late in the first period, with Tarasenko hitting Berggren as a trailer off the rush and Berggren firing in a low wrist shot.  Alex Nedeljkovic stopped the first round easily, but Berggren didn’t need the third time to find the charm, instead burying his second opportunity at the look.

Young Marco Kasper didn’t pick up a point on the play, but he too deserves commendation for helping create the goal.  It was his drive to the net that occupied two Penguin defenders and helped create the lane through which Tarasenko found Berggren.  On the whole, it’s encouraging for Detroit to get some production from that Berggren-Kasper-Tarasenko trio, which has shown plenty of promise but thus far not delivered much on the scoresheet.

Number to Know: 0/2

The Red Wings held the Pittsburgh power play scoreless in two tries.  That’s not a massive sample size of course, and the Penguins haven’t exactly been a dominant power play force this year, but for a penalty kill struggling as Detroit’s has been, a small victory like last night’s is worth celebrating.

“There’s nights you play Pittsburgh, and they’re Pittsburgh.  There’s nights you play Pittsburgh that Sidney [Crosby] and [Evgeni] Malkin look like they’re gonna take the game over, and this was one of those nights,” Derek Lalonde told reporters after the game.  “So I give our guys credit.”  That comment wasn’t specific to the power play, but clearly both Pittsburgh superstars were desperate to break their team out of a poor start to the season, and even if it hasn’t been an especially successful unit this season, a power play featuring Crosby, Malkin, Kris Letang, and Erik Karlsson has to be taken seriously.

Earlier this week, Ben Chiarot spoke to the importance of aggression for the Red Wing PK: “On entries, on face-offs, don’t let them get to their structure. Don’t let them get to what they’re trying to do. A team like the Rangers, such a dangerous power play, if you give them time and space, they’ll find a way to get to the back of the net, so being aggressive at the right times is important.”  You could see Detroit succeed in that objective, denying the Pens clean entries and the resulting zone time.  In that regard, the Red Wings took care of business on the PK last night, and that success, combined with Kane’s PPG, went a long way toward Detroit finding its way to the right side of the result last night.

Related: Red Wings Have Hit Jackpot With Quality Defender

Observations

Larkin vs. Crosby

I wanted to wrap by talking about one individual (or line versus line) match-up from last night’s game.  As Lalonde noted, Crosby threatened to steal this game just about by himself (with some help from his old buddy Malkin), but his path to doing so was an interesting one.

At five-on-five, Crosby out-shot his opposition 15-10 in 17:46, per Natural Stat Trick.  Over half of that time came against Larkin, but in those minutes, Crosby was actually underwater by shot data.  When Larkin and Crosby were on the ice together at five-on-five (which was the case for 8:10), the Red Wings enjoyed an 8-4 advantage in shots.  Against every other Detroit centermen, Crosby had a comfortable edge (4-1 in 3:39 against Marco Kasper, 2-1 in 2:56 against Joe Veleno, and 5-0 in 2:54 against J.T. Compher).

That is to say to get Crosby going, Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan had to get Crosby away from that Larkin match-up.  That’s a credit to Larkin against arguably the best player of the NHL’s salary cap era, who might well be past his apex but remains one of the league’s toughest players to keep down.

It also raises an interesting question about the Red Wings’ usage of Larkin.  If tonight is any indicator, it may be worthwhile to chase the match-up of Larkin consistently taking on the opponent’s top line.  That’s not entirely a deviation from how Lalonde has used Larkin, but Larkin’s minutes haven’t been as starkly difficult as say, Moritz Seider’s.  It might cost Larkin a bit of offense, but it may well be Detroit’s best path to remaining competitive against teams with high-end offensive firepower.

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