Well, that’s not how we wanted this to go. After taking a day to cool down and stop raging about playing down to our competition last night, let’s take a look back and see what went wrong in a game that saw us relinquish a point to a divisional foe.
1st Period
Right off the bat, the Wings were getting out-hustled. Things settled in after the first shift though, and both teams seemed content to drive each other towards low-event hockey for the first few minutes. Then, we thought it was going to be a good evening around 9:00 into the period.
Botching the zone exit with a pass behind the Ottawa break-out man, Joe Veleno recovered the errant puck still in the zone. Quickly turning back toward the net, Veleno sent a cross-ice pass to Daniel Sprong at the low face-off dot. With two Sens close in on the goal, Sprong had plenty of space to wind up and line up his shot. He ripped it home as Korpisalo tried and failed to slide across the crease, and we were out to an early 1-0 lead on our second shot of the game (the first came :37 into the period… yikes).
After a short stint of play and a tv timeout, Christian Fischer was sent to the penalty box for treating Brady Tkachuk the way he should normally be treated (the call was hooking but whatever). The Senators finished the full 2 minutes with *checks play-by-play* a full ZERO shots on goal. Penalty killed, but momentum did not shift our way.
The Sens, somehow, came out of a lifeless powerplay with steam and drove play to the last 2:00 of the period when Michael Rasmussen bet he could hook Shane Pinto and lost. Ottawa put some heat on Alex Lyon early in the man-advantage, but couldn’t convert and the period ended with the good guys hanging onto the lead.
2nd Period
It wasn’t long out of the tunnel before Ottawa would tie this up. After about 3:00 of back-and-forth play, Ottawa put some sustained pressure on the Wings. Coming away from a scrum with the puck, Ottawa sent an uncontested shot from the blue-line (have you heard me complain about these much this season?) toward Lyon. Gostisbehere tried to play the puck mid-air instead of taking his man, leaving Mark Kastelic about 4-feet wide open to tip the shot inside between the post and a sliding Lyon. And thus, we surrendered our lead for the rest of the night.
Both squads played with a bit more heat under their seats after the Kastelic goal, but it resulted in nothing until Brady Tkachuk tripped Jake Walman with 7:35 left in the period. We went on the powerplay but it resulted in a whopping not-a-damn-thing, and then Brady was hit with an exit pass as he tore out of the box. Had Seider not blown a tire at center ice, it would have been a nothing play. Instead, it wound up as a breakaway and another goal for the bad guys as the shot went over Lyon’s glove-side shoulder.
The last 5 minutes of the period would pass without fireworks, and the Wings headed into the locker room down 2-1.
3rd Period
Another frame where low-event tactics took over to start, roughly half the period would pass before Christian Fischer took another penalty – this time for tripping the 2nd best German on the ice, Tim Stützle. Ottawa would get a few chances and shots, but the PK stayed perfect on the night.
Shortly after the penalty expired, the Wings got set up in the Ottawa zone and our captain found himself with the puck on his stick. Throwing the puck toward the net thru traffic, Larkin found himself on the board and the game tied as his shot snuck thru and over Korpisalo’s glove.
With 8:00 left in the game, both teams probed carefully but couldn’t come up with a quality chance and we headed to overtime.
OT
What matters is that, 2:00 into the extra frame, Walman got beat by a saucer pass and DeBrincat couldn’t out-position Shane Pinto as he swatted a wobbler past Alex Lyon for the win. The Wings did not register a shot in OT. S**t.
Takeaways
I feel like this team has a knack for playing down to opponents. Or maybe Ottawa just has a way of getting hyped to play us. Either way, it’s annoying and I’m ready for it to stop. We’re better than this game, but we didn’t show it. Even the best teams don’t get the bounces and ruts to go their way every night, but I’m tired of them seeming to fall mostly Ottawa’s way for 3 games now.
I’m not so upset about giving up 1 point to Ottawa, but DAMN could we have used that 2nd point. Heading into the All-Star Break, that could have shot us all the way into 3rd place (by points, not points%) and would have been a real feel-good story for a week. Instead, the lone point we salvaged keeps us in 5th… which is still a Wild Card spot for now, but a divisional seed would be a lot less nerve-wracking as we head into the final 2 months of the regular season.
Someone needs to teach these guys how to play the body. That’s obviously easier said than done – the first goal and the third goal could have been stopped by playing the body, but would have relied on one player who historically doesn’t play the body (Gostisbehere’s 1.59 hits/60 since the 19-20 season ranks 1,245th of 1,407 skaters) and one who is undersized to do so (DeBrincat is listed as 5’8” 180lbs). Maybe I’m still just sour about these goals and that it was the Sens who scored them, but I feel like a lot of our guys need lessons on physical play and how to not be so concerned with playing pretty.
Enjoy the week off and the All-Star festivities!
