RECAP: Red Wings extend losing streak, plus more questions in 3-2 loss to Flames

The feeling in downtown Detroit was hopeful, and cheery after the Detroit Lions downed the Jacksonville Jaguars in a must-win game. Wait, hold on, this isn’t Pride of Detroit. We need to talk about the Red Wings.

I attended the game... Emotions? Well, they are mixed.

I could sit here and tell you how I think Anthony Mantha should have been on this roster from the beginning of the season, because, well, to be quite honest, he has been incredibly impressive in his short tenure. But let’s skip that. The goaltending has been great — Jimmy Howard has been a stud, Petr Mrazek has been okay, and that is all you can ask from them.

The Red Wings took an early lead over the Flames via a goal from Tomas Tatar, his third of the season. They really came out of the gate in impressive fashion against a Flames team who was missing their best player in Johnny Gaudreau.

The Flames were able to knot the game up at one in the second period on a goal from Garnet Hathaway. For those of you asking yourselves “did Kyle just make up a name,” the answer is no. Garnet Hathaway is a real person, who plays in the National Hockey League. The scoring would not resume until the third period, which the Flames capitalized on from Matt Stajan to make it 2-1.

After the Flames’ go-ahead goal, the Red Wings managed to notch a tying goal from none other than Anthony Mantha. An absolute sick shot refilled the hope of an entire city, buy was robbed about five minutes later on a goal from Mikael Backlund, which ended up being the game-winner.

Alright, earlier I briefly touched on how great Anthony Mantha is. I’ll go ahead and talk about it more now... I was in attendance, and perhaps that skews my perception, but he was magnificent the entire time. He is the only player who stood out who was not named Tatar or Howard. Even watching him up against the glass during warmups, realizing how large of a human he is, I still cannot grasp how he was not an NHL player to start this season. He is good, and if he ends up back in Grand Rapids, I will be fully unclothed and crimson online.

Other notable names from tonight were Thomas Vanek, and Henrik Zetterberg. I thought Vanek played extremely well in his return from injury, and Hank came out very noticeable with his offensive play. Unfortunatley for the Wings, it wasn’t enough. Another loss, and another (few) question(s) arise for a very, what seems to be, mediocre team. One big question falls right on coaching, like the decision to give the Red Wings’ best player in Anthony Mantha to the penalty box in a late delay of game penalty. What gives? However you want to look at it, that is a bad call.

The Wings now sit 7th in the Atlantic Division, and boast of one the worst teams in the entire Eastern Conference in terms of points%. Panic? Nah, just anger. Something needs to be done. It is pretty clear this is not a playoff team, so now it is up to management to decide what to do.

Let’s go Red Wings, or something.