The Red Wings came into Tampa tonight unexpectedly rested after last night’s tilt against the Hurricanes was postponed. The Sunshine State offered better ice conditions in a scenario that otherwise would have you wonder if pigs were flying outside your windows. Nick Jensen finally made his NHL debut tonight, though, which I’m counting as close enough to airborne bacon.
The two teams clashed tonight while boasting nearly identical, dismal records and only a point between them in the standings. Both are out of striking distance of the playoffs for the time being, but a regulation victory would do wonders for either club in the fight for an Atlantic berth in the post-season.
First Period:
The game started off with Tomas Tatar trying to continue his scoring from Saturday night on a nice back pass from Anthony Mantha less than a minute in. On the other end of the ice, Jonathan Drouin fired a backhander into Jimmy Howard that initially seemed to give him a bit of trouble.
Animosity early near the benches in this one, with Glendening in the middle of it. I still wonder what it is that Luke says to other players that gets them so mad. Probably uses that college degree to say something smart and then just smiles when he sees he’s confused his opponent.
Tampa had a bunch of zone time that reminded me why this team continues to scare me, even without guys like Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov. The Wings were able to reduce the pressure eventually, but weren’t able to convert on anything at the other end.
That led to the play coming back into the Wings’ zone once again and it was Tampa’s Angry Blue Giant that broke the scoreless tie a shade over seven minutes in. Brian Boyle tipped in a shot from Anton Stralman that Jimmy Howard had no chance on. If you’re keeping score at home, that made eight straight games that the Wings gave up the first goal in a game.
A little bit of confusion and chaos in front of the Tampa net nearly led to the Wings tying it up, but it was Glendening in close and he wasn’t on his backhand, so no cigar.
Ben Bishop appeared to be hurt trying to stop a Nick Jensen shot twelve minutes in. The Lightning goalie slid prone to the ice, but after play was stopped he was able to skate carefully to the bench. Andrei Vasilevskiy came in cold with his team on the power play, because somehow the Wings managed to take a penalty in that whole sequence. The man advantage ended without incident, which was fortunate considering it was all Tampa control for two solid minutes.
The Wings’ power play that shortly followed was a different story. It also ended without a goal scored, but they had issues maintaining zone time. Tell me something I haven’t heard before, eh?
Oh look, it’s time for the fight that sparks the team’s comeback, and it’s… Andreas Athanasiou?! I mean, JT Brown tackled him to the ice and then shoved him in the face when he was trying to get to his feet, but Athanasiou ended up taking himself off the ice for the ensuing power play the Wings were awarded.
Alex Killorn had a dangerous short-handed chance and the Wings continued to dink around in their own zone on the power play, so I guess we’re just padding the Bolts’ atrocious PK stats tonight. How nice of us.
The period ended with a buzzer-beating save by Howard. Choppy and chippy first twenty minutes.
Shots: 13-7 Lightning
Score: 1-0 Tampa Bay
Standout Players: Tatar, Mantha
Tough Period: Kronwall, Sheahan
Second Period:
Dylan Larkin took a couple of hard hits early in the second, including a blindside hit by Cedric Paquette as Larkin was going for a change that knocked him right into the linesman. Clear interference that wasn’t called, but the Wings got a power play a little later when a certain digger’s original scapegoat tripped Xavier Ouellet.
Not that it made any difference of course, though Nicklas Kronwall decided to actually take some slapshots instead of hanging out at the blue line all the time while his teammates are collapsing
More goalie changes in this game as Howard was crashed into by Jensen and Erik Condra. Howard was immediately writhing in pain, and a closer look seemed to show his right leg getting twisted in the collision. He put no weight on it coming off the ice and was helped down the tunnel by two of the Wings’ assistants. Petr Mrazek took the crease in his absence.
Mrazek gets a rude introduction to the game from Jonathan Drouin, who drew a tripping call after making the entire team look like fools. Not even 30 seconds into the penalty kill, Glendening took a stupid retaliatory slash at Hedman’s ankles after getting knocked down, putting his team down another man. Drouin made it 2-0 Lightning seven seconds later.
Also I see Ott’s leadership has been rubbing off on Glendening, he really taught him how to put his team on a 5-on-3 well.
— Lauren (@redwinger43) December 21, 2016
Sorry, not sorry.
The Wings actually got their own crack at a 5-on-3 (which promptly started with Henrik Zetterberg breaking his stick), but accomplished nothing yet again. With the Wings still on the second penalty, Ouellet returned the tripping favor to Valtteri Filppula, the latter getting an embellishment call in the process.
Someone left something in the oven, so I had to go take care of that. I missed nothing.
Brayden Point made it 3-0 on a tap-in to the right of Mrazek. Two straight power play goals against on stupid slashing calls from fourth liners. Nice discipline by the guys who keep jobs because they work hard.
Vladislav Namestnikov converted on a 2-on-1 with Killorn with 32.6 seconds left. 4-0 Lightning and I’m glaring holes into my television screen.
Shots: 24-19 Lightning
Score: 4-0 Tampa Bay
Standout Players: Um, no one wearing white
Tough Period: Literally everyone
Third Period:
I didn’t want to keep watching this game, but I have a duty to my fellow writers and our lovely commenters here.
The third period started off even worse because Drew Miller threw a cross-check and managed to hit Cory Conacher in the face with his stick at the same time. It ended up being a double minor penalty that the Wings miraculously killed off in its entirety.
Mrazek made a nice stop after some fancy-dancy passing by the Lightning right in front of him. I guess I’ll take what I can get.
I don’t know, everyone, when Ken Daniels and Darren Eliot started letting long pauses into their commentary and talked about Slater Koekkoek’s development, I tuned out. At least Mickey Redmond would have started singing or talking about the good old days, with a lot of chuckles and oh boys thrown in. Hell, he could have given a dissertation on the benefits of wooden sticks over composite ones and it would have been more interesting than the game.
In fact, to combat the boredom that this game was suddenly plunged into, I tried writing a limerick about the Red Wings:
There once was a team from Detroit
Other teams they’d often exploit
But that was ‘08
And now three years late
Our reload’s dead and we should just tank for Nolan Patrick at this point
Er, well… I tried. I’m a scientist, not a poet.
I finished writing that just as Anthony Mantha broke Tampa’s shutout with 11 seconds left. Jensen hit the post and the puck trickled through the crease to a waiting Mantha, who swatted it into the net. It’s about as good an insult as you can come up with against a team that just kicked your butts without taking their skates off first. But hey, Jensen got an assist. Good for him.
Shots: 31-27 Lightning
Score: 4-1 Tampa Bay
Standout Players: The 2013 Grand Rapids Griffins
Tough Period: The passengers on Red Bird III, Darren Eliot in that game from 1986 he was talking about
Final Thoughts:
- I was disappointed that the Red Wings didn’t score on the power play when Steve Ott got high-sticked. I was really looking forward to reading all the puff pieces about how he’d throw himself in front of a stick to spark the team.
- Athanasiou stood up for himself after Brown cheap-shotted him, but that is not a set of hands I want throwing punches. Those lovely Greek phalanges should be protected at all costs.
- The Wings and Bolts should stop playing games against each other. Injuries during these matchups are inevitable at this point and I’m starting to get seriously concerned for these players.
- At times I felt like I was watching a wounded animal limp around with a bear trap on its leg. Except that bear trap is Niklas Kronwall and that animal is Detroit’s power play.
- Seriously, the man advantage was at 4% for the month of December before this game and it got worse tonight. Regression to the mean does not exist for this team, I guess.
- That game was bad and the Wings should feel bad. Zetterberg looked appropriately dejected after the game and had no interest in speaking with reporters. Lots of silence after questions and he didn’t even bother with canned answers.
- One of our favorite diggers did come up with a brilliant question for our Swedish bearded captain: “Do you lie awake at night thinking about what you can do more?” We at WIIM have exclusive information that it was followed up with, “Hank… are you sufficiently ashamed? Do you feel like you’re ashamed enough?” and “Hank, I have to ask: when you are playing with your newborn in your time off, do you ever wonder if your lack of scoring is upsetting your stupid baby? Do you regret living ever?”/
