The Red Wings knew this was coming.
They knew the New York Rangers visiting Detroit Thursday night were one of the best outfits in the NHL. They knew their opponent’s goaltending would be crisp, and their power play dominant. They knew they had to overcome these strengths — through defense, through buy-in, through adjustment — to earn a redeeming win amid a difficult start to the season.
They didn’t, and because of that, the Red Wings (1-3-0) have to stomach another lopsided loss. And no matter how tough a stretch they have faced to start the season, pressure is mounting on Detroit to prove its merits at the onset of a season filled with so much hope and hype. The team it wanted to be this season — with sound goaltending, decisive special teams and especially defense — has yet to show up. Thursday’s loss only adds more pressure.
Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images
“Everything at the beginning of the season is magnified,” Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said after the loss. “You’re gonna go through these type of stretches throughout the year. It just happens to be on the front end. And again, we knew it’d be a tough stretch, just a little frustrating the way some of these have played out.”
Knowing the stretch would be tough or not, the Red Wings have shown little response to their slow start. The same struggles — defense, goaltending, and a lack of finishing on offense — have reared in all three losses, and they were prominent again Thursday.
The Rangers (3-0-1) spent a lot of time in Detroit’s end to start the first period, but three and a half minutes of power play time gave the hosts life and momentum. The Red Wings failed to convert on these chances, however, including an Alex DeBrincat shot that missed a wide open net and a loose puck drill that New York cleaned up first.
Despite Detroit building a 13-1 edge in unblocked shot attempts as tracked by ESPN, forward Artemi Panarin scored on the Rangers’ very first shot 8:30 into the game, the opening move for would snowball into a hat trick and four-point night for the Russian superstar. That all included his team’s second goal, which put New York up 2-0 going into the first intermission.
The Red Wings came into the second period with a chance to change momentum — they knew they needed to if they would stand a chance. Defenseman Moritz Seider scored just 1:27 into the second frame to give Detroit a little bit of juice. But in the next 11 minutes, two more Ranger power play goals and defenseman Victor Mancini’s first NHL goal put the Red Wings down 5-1. They swapped goaltender Cam Talbot (who let in all five goals on 19 shots) for Alex Lyon, but otherwise lulled through the rest of the game without much hope to wrest back control. Boos from an emptying stadium punctuated another rough night in the Motor City.
“It’s a frustrating game in that we start very well, and they score on their first chance and their first power play,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said after the game. “We find ourselves down 2-0 when we played a pretty good period. So yes, it’s only four games and they all looked a little bit different. But this one just got away from us on the special teams.”
Pin the blame on any excuse, but Detroit knew what would happen if it couldn’t contain New York’s power play, which went 3-for-5 on the night. It knew goals would be hard to come by against the Rangers goaltenders — even the backup, three-time Stanley Cup champion Jonathan Quick. Despite this knowledge and all the preparation, despite seeing this very same team three nights ago, the Red Wings left the game with another frustrating loss, with little resemblance to the team they hoped to be heading into the season.
It wasn’t long ago that the Red Wings were a playoff hopeful looking to play these very Rangers in a playoff series. But through an offseason spent trying to arm another playoff push on a shoestring budget, Detroit lost what made that season tick. Its saving grace last year was its offense, but it let 75 goals worth of scoring walk through free agency and trades. Now, the Red Wings are averaging 2.25 goals per game, bottom five in the NHL. And the asset they so coveted to instill this offseason — defensive improvement — hasn’t shown up consistently either. The Rangers exposed both sides of this identity crisis in short order.
“It’s not something you just flip a switch and it happens,” defenseman Ben Chiarot said about defensive buy-in. “It’s not just guys knowing the structure. We have a lot of offensive minded players, guys that want to go on offense. To get those kind of guys to buy into playing defense, it takes time. It’s a process to buy in. You hear teams every year talk about buying into what the coaches are preaching, and we’re in that process right now. And it doesn’t just happen one night two nights (in). It takes time, and you gotta have lessons like tonight (to) make you change it in a hurry.”
What exactly has to change? The first four games including Thursday’s exposed so many issues going on at once. Defensive play, goaltending and special teams have been decidedly weaknesses of the Red Wings, with little shown progress night to night.
“It’s only a couple games, and we’re playing top teams every night,” Chiarot said. “that’s a team that’s been to the final four a couple times now in the last couple years. So we’re playing stiff competition, which is good for us early in the season. It’s a good measuring stick, and it shows us where we got to get to. We got a lot of work to do. Thankfully, it’s early in the season and we can kind of learn our lesson early, as opposed to fooling ourselves early on, winning a couple easy ones, and then facing teams like this down the stretch when we really need those points.”
Perhaps that perspective offers a saving grace, but it doesn’t change how poor of a start the Red Wings have gotten off to. They surely hoped for more than one win out of these first four games, and especially hoped to more closely resemble the team they hoped to be by now. This puts even more emphasis on getting anything out of the next batch of games, raising the stakes even higher.
There’s a way out, if Detroit can start stringing together wins. But as Chiarot pointed out, the root of its problems run so deep that there won’t be such a thing as a quick fix. Even if it’s just four games into the season, it feels as though the next 78 are going to be a rough ride.
Performances like Thursday are the kind that turn seats hot and fan bases cold. They’re the kinds of losses that playoff teams rarely take. But they’re all too common to start the Red Wings’ season. And if they continue to be, they know what comes next.
