For the second time this week, the Detroit Red Wings fell to the New York Rangers. While a rare night off for Igor Shesterkin provided some hope that Detroit could muster more offense, they had no such luck against Jonathan Quick, and the Rangers rode a hot power play to an easy 5-2 victory.
It took a few minutes for either team to even register a shot, but the Red Wings found some early momentum thanks to some power plays that they were unable to convert. New York connected on its first shot and then on each of the three power-play chances it had before the game was even half over, essentially putting it out of reach.
Stars gotta be stars
It’s hard to take many lessons from this one, but how the first transpired from the Rangers’ end isn’t a bad place to start. They didn’t record a shot, or even so much as sniff an opportunity, until their first goal 8:30 into the first period. Twenty-two minutes of game time later, they’d chased Cam Talbot.
And that’s not because he deserved it, either. While he wasn’t as sharp as his shutout win over Nashville last week, it was definitely something between a mercy-pull and a wake-up-the-bench move.
Take a look at the scoresheet: a hat trick, and four points for Artemi Panarin. A goal and three helpers for Vincent Trocheck. Three assists for Adam Fox. No points for possibly-nearly-a-Wing Jacob Trouba, but his stick disrupted one of the two (!) empty-net looks the Red Wings had in the first period.
I’m not singling anyone out, yet. Lucas Raymond is at a point-per-game, Dylan Larkin and Alex DeBrincat are just under that, Moritz Seider was definitely the team’s best player tonight. And Panarin has a long track record of getting hot like this, which makes it all the more frustrating for Rangers fans when it isn’t going in for him.
But this team is now spending close to the cap ceiling and has a lot of years committed to some of these players. Detroit can’t afford to have all of them topping out at “good” for significant segments. They’ve all shown they can take over games, drag the team into the fight. We’re a long way from sounding alarm bells — well, not all of us judging from the game thread comments — but I can’t imagine a team that went through what this one did late last season is going to feel comfortable if the season starts heading in the wrong direction.
Excuse-o-meter
I’ll never gatekeep how fans feel. There are 78 games left, and at this point in the season, trajectories can look massively different from week-to-week. It’s certainly tough to feel inspired by three multi-goal losses and a win in which the team surrendered 40+ shots.
But I’m willing to make some excuses for those already clamoring for heads to roll. The Rangers are very good, and my preseason pick to come out of the East. It’s a battle-tested group with no real weaknesses — even the “backup goalie” we were all looking forward to facing has multiple Cups, among other personal hardware, and was excellent last season even though he’s up there in age. They have given the Red Wings fits for more than a decade — though their group has changed a decent bit in that span, I can’t think of a single team that Detroit’s offense looks more anemic against.
It’s a tough break from the schedule-makers, with no immediate relief, as their next opponent is the Nashville Predators, a popular preseason potential surprise team due to the heavy facelift they gave their roster in the offseason, who I’m sure will be eager to make a statement after starting 0-4-0.
It’s also worth mentioning that Detroit has a bug going around the room, with Vladimir Tarasenko missing practice yesterday and Dylan Larkin and Andrew Copp missing morning skate today. “A few other guys looked like they played sick, too,” I can envision some rushing to the comments to say. But it is what it is. Sometimes that means a few guys have the sniffles and they’re being cautious, other times it means players are getting hooked to IVs during intermissions.
But facts are facts: it’s an uninspiring start to the season: a sputtering offense, a leaky-looking defense, no obvious answer in net and struggling special teams.
Nowhere to go but up, right? Right?! We’ll learn more on Saturday afternoon, when the Red Wings visit the Nashville Predators at 2 p.m. EDT.
