One minute and five seconds into the second period of Friday night’s game in Anaheim, the Detroit Red Wings appeared in control. Lucas Raymond—sprung by a banked Alex DeBrincat pass out of the defensive zone—had just scored to make it 3-1 Red Wings, and Detroit looked as though it could put the game in cruise control against the Western Conference’s cellar dwellers. Instead, the Red Wings gave up a late second period goal, then four more in the third to suffer a 6-4 loss to the lowly Ducks.
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In the first period, the Red Wings conceded early, then took control. Olen Zellweger beat Alex Lyon with a one-timed blast from the point just 72 seconds into the evening’s proceedings, but Detroit settled in after the early goal against. Just minutes after being denied on a wide open point blank look, rookie centerman Marco Kasper scored his first career NHL goal. With the Red Wings on the power play, Kasper took advantage of a crisp passing sequence from Jonatan Berggren along the half-wall to Moritz Seider at the point to J.T. Compher in the high slot, before Compher allowed Kasper to skate onto his backhand pass, which the 20-year-old Austrian collected, dusted off, then fired past John Gibson as he funneled down the slot. It would not prove the last first career goal of the evening.
After Berggren gave Detroit the lead in the final minute of the first (another power play goal, extending his personal goal streak to two) and Raymond doubled that lead in the second minute of the second, the Red Wings were in a comfortable position, and they began to play like it. As the period drew toward its conclusion, Trevor Zegras cast a shadow of doubt on the result with a power play goal of his own.
Troy Terry tied the game with a power play goal three minutes and 54 seconds into the third, and the game would remain 3-3 for just under eight minutes before Cutter Gauthier scored his first NHL goal at the 11:09 mark, lifting the Ducks back into the lead. 38 seconds later, Ross Johnston made it 5-3 Anaheim compounding the Red Wings’ woes.
Alex DeBrincat was able to rekindle Detroit’s hopes when he buried a rebound with the clock showing 3:44 to play. The goal (the Red Wings’ third power play strike of the evening) cut the lead to 5-4. However, Ryan Strome formally ended Detroit’s comeback hopes by hitting the empty net to seal the 6-4 result in favor of the home team.
Alex Lyon made his first start in net since Oct. 30 against the Winnipeg Jets, and it was an effort to forget for the former Yale Bulldog. Lyon made just 23 saves on 28 shots in the losing effort. His puck tracking and movement around his crease lacked the sharpness he’d shown earlier in the season, and at the very least, the Ducks’ opening goal is one you’d expect Lyon would want back.
For the Red Wings, it is a painful loss: The game was in complete control early in the second period, the loss comes to an opponent that entered the night dead last in the Western Conference, and Detroit scored thrice on the power play, including the first career marker for Kasper.
However, none of it was enough, and instead, the Red Wings fall to 7-8-1 for the season. Anaheim should have afforded Detroit a relatively easy entry point into its California swing. Instead, the loss sends the Red Wings’ into the second leg of a back-to-back this evening in Los Angeles desperate for a win against the one Californian team to make last year’s postseason in the Kings. It’s far from an ideal course for the road trip to follow, but it’s the one the Red Wings have set themselves upon.
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