On Saturday afternoon in Buffalo, the Detroit Red Wings (now 4-4-0) snapped their three-game winning streak with a 5-3 loss in Buffalo. It wasn’t a disastrous showing for the Red Wings by any means, but all the time spent defending (a three-games building trend by now) caught up to the visitors, who spent most of the night chasing a deficit that ultimately proved insurmountable.
The first period began in accordance with the most concerning aspects of the last two performances. Detroit didn’t look defensively stout; it looked passive. Once again, the Red Wings couldn’t escape its own end of the rink and suffered a heavy disadvantage in shots. Exactly 12 minutes into the action, Tage Thompson made it 2-0 in favor of the Sabres, at which point Buffalo already lead 13-3 in shots. Detroit was caught in the midst of an awkward change, failed to clear, and eventually yielded an in-zone two-on-one, which Thompson converted. The Sabres’ opener represented a new nadir for a struggling Red Wing penalty kill, with Jason Zucker scoring his team’s first power play goal of the season at the 4:04 mark of the first.
Detroit did manage to mount resistance in the aftermath of Thompson’s 2-0 goal. Not quite three minutes later, Alex DeBrincat finished off a pretty sequence of passing between himself, Lucas Raymond, Dylan Larkin, and Moritz Seider. The goal, his fourth of the year, continued DeBrincat’s strong start to the season. Immediately following the goal, Jonatan Berggren put the Red Wings back on the penalty kill with a hooking minor, but this time, Detroit warded off the Sabre man advantage without incident. The Red Wings built on the boost from the successful PK in the closing minutes of the frame but nonetheless ended the period at a 9-16 deficit in shots on goal.
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The second period followed a similar pattern, only accelerated. Three minutes and 20 seconds into the period, Thompson scored his second of the night to make it 3-1 Sabres, threatening to pull away and punish Detroit for all the zone time. Instead, the goal once again galvanized the Red Wings. Michael Rasmussen scored his second goal in as many games 31 seconds later, beating Buffalo D-man Rasmus Dahlin to a rebound around Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s crease to bury it. On a Sabres power play just over seven minutes later, Raymond broke through for his first of the season, with a deceptive two-on-one finish as Jeff Petry drove the net. It was not just Raymond’s first goal of the year but also his first career short-handed goal.
The Red Wings’ run of momentum would break by the end of the period. Bowen Byram picked up his first goal of the season with 4:06 to play, throwing a puck into a maelstrom at the top of Alex Lyon’s crease and getting the benefit of a fortunate bounce to restore the Buffalo lead to 4-3. Detroit had a chance to pull back even late on the power play , when Larkin found DeBrincat at the back door with a wide open net, but DeBrincat’s shot sailed wide. The Red Wings returned to the dressing room for the second intermission trailing after a frenetic second period in which they were outshot 17-12.
That near miss would prove costly as the Sabres held Detroit scoreless to close out their victory in the third. Though there were a few decent looks during a mid-period power play, the Red Wings never had a great chance at an equalizer until their desperation end-of-game six-on-five push. Larkin drove the net to kick off a chaotic sequence in the game’s final 90 seconds. Patrick Kane had a good look at a yawning net with some chaos in front of it, but his shot struck the post. Buffalo recovered the puck, and Jack Quinn delivered it into the empty net with 51 seconds left to clinch the 5-3 result.
In some ways, the performance brought more positives than either of the two previous victories in that Detroit proved better able to carry play for at least occasional stretches. However, it must also be said that the doubts raised by those two contests flared up again in Buffalo, with the Red Wings once again looking more passive than defensively sound and consequently spending excessive time in their own end. Detroit will have to bounce back in a hurry, with the explosive Edmonton Oilers coming to Little Caesars Arena tomorrow evening.
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