Red Wings lose more than two points in heated skirmish against Lightning, FINAL: 5-3

The Red Wings came into tonight with nothing to play for but their pride, and the hopes to spoil a division rivals hopes at making the playoffs.

First Period

Let me just say, the name Yanni Gourde is not real. That is not a real person. There will be no debate.

Anthony Mantha got in a fight with Danny DeKeyser’s former linemate in the opening five minutes, so that’s cool. Petr Mrazek wast tested early on, but the Red Wings got the opening goal shortly after the fighting major on Mantha:

Another fight broke out shortly after, this time it was between Xavier Ouellet and J.T. Brown. That’s just the third fight in Ouellet’s career. He got a nice hit in at least.

Might I say, it’s nice that the Red Wings finally have a true rival in the Lightning. After the Wings’ goal, the game got extremely chippy. Hits being thrown left and right, exciting plays along the boards, etc. You can definitely tell that the Lightning are fighting for their playoff lives and the Red Wings are fighting to spoil that.

In the closing minutes of the first period, it was announced that Anthony Mantha would not return due to an upper-body injury. Fighting is stupid.

The Lightning tied the game up on a goal from J.T. Brown with less than a minute left. Darren Helm’s turnover led to the goal, Brown sniped it top-shelf on Mrazek’s glove side:

After 20 minutes, both teams are knotted up at a goal a piece.

Second Period

Yep, Mantha is out for the rest of the season:

The chippy play continued to open up the second period. Nothing too exciting, but Tampa did manage to pull ahead on a goal from Andrej Sustr after he went to the net and a pass went off of his skate.

Up to this point, the highlight of the period has to be how upset I made Bolts fans for this tweet, which wasn’t even criticizing anything. Sensitive bunch, those folks:

The Red Wings bounced back from Sustr’s goal, by the time the next goal came, the shots were all tied up. Detroit tied the game on a goal from Danny DeKeyser; he shot it from the point and it went off of a Bolts defender. That makes 900 career points for Henrik Zetterberg, who picked up his 48th assist of the season:

I really don’t have much else to say about at the rest of the period, because it all unraveled for the Red Wings.

Danny DeKeyser scored again, except, he scored on his own net, which sums up this entire season perfectly. The Bolts managed to score again — Jonathan Drouin danced through the Red Wings defense on a power-play brought on by a crosscheck from Danny DeKeyser.

Score is 4-2 after 40 minutes, and I am growing less interested in describing this game to you all. Sorry.

Third Period

Red Wings start the period on the power play.

They didn’t score on the power play.

Some time between the end of the 2nd period, and about a minute into the third period, I forgot that the Red Wings were down by two goals.

The Red Wings continued to play a very lackluster game and the Lightning danced around them without a problem. The guy that I made fun of at the beginning of this so-called recap scored to make it 5-2. Yes, Yanni Gourde scored. Life continues to be a questionable hellscape.

The Red Wings went back to the man advantage, which to all of our surprise, they did NOT squander. Mike Green picked up his 13th goal with this effort off his own rebound with help from Frans Nielsen:

That was all you need to know about the rest of this game.

The Red Wings couldn’t manage to pull the spoiler to an under-manned Tampa Bay Lightning, and they come out of it minus one of their best players for the rest of the season. God help us all.

---

All I can really say, as a fan, is that I want this season to be over.

I’m going to enjoy the final games at the Joe, then prepare for what appears to be a completely hellish offseason full of stuff like the expansion draft, and drafting the highest-picked player since who-the-hell-can-remember-when.

I still hope the Lightning miss the playoffs, and if they do somehow make it, I hope they get taken to the house by the team they go up against in the first round.

Player of the game is Henrik Zetterberg for being notching point number 900, and being TPH 2.0.