Who doesn’t love a slopfest on national TV after getting your ass whooped the night before?
Detroit came into Tuesday night bruised and broken, yet somehow squeezed by with a win. How do you do that when you’re missing so many key players? It helps when you have depth players step up and, of course, when the opponent is no good.
1st Period
The tale of this period was that the Wings didn’t start this game like they should have. That resulted in St. Louis scoring the game’s first goal. Brandon Saad was left all alone while Fabbri was caught wandering.
Detroit would respond with two unanswered goals about two minutes apart. Jake Walman and Jonatan Berggren picking up the tallies.
The first period ended with Jeff Petry taking a stick right to the kisser. No call.
2nd Period
Detroit started off on the same foot as it did to begin the game. Just a few minutes into the second period, Kevin Hayes rattled off a pair of goals within about 30 seconds. The second goal was nightmare fuel from Mortiz Seider. A blind pass on the backhand meant to clear the puck but landed right into the wrong hands. Tough to watch.
Seider was able to shrug that play off and answer a game-tying goal around the 10 minutes into the middle frame. This was his fifth goal of the season, tying his number of goals last season.
Something about this Red Wings team. Maybe it’s the subpar goaltending, or maybe it’s the fact we’re missing our top two centers and three keys on special teams… Detroit finds themselves on a power-play with a few minutes left in the period, and it turns into a shorthand-breakaway goal from Marco Scandella (his first of the season.)
3rd Period
The Wings decided that the final period of this game would be unique — what I mean by that is they slammed the door shut and scored a few unanswered goals to bring in a much-needed win. It started with a PP goal from Lucas Raymond. It was a quick strike, too.. Less than one minute into the third period, the Wings picked up a PP and a PPG:
Detroit would be granted another look on the power-play, but that didn’t develop a goal. Instead, Robby Fabbri would pull his team ahead about seven minutes into the third:
Fun fact: Fabbri has only six games this season where he has been held point-less.
The Blues would have a chance to make this a game with a power-play in the closing minutes. It was hard work from Joe Veleno and Michael Rasmussen that put it away, with a shorthanded empty-net goal.
FINAL: 6-4, Red Wings
Well, that was a rollercoaster of emotions.
It wasn’t a pretty, but when you’re missing Dylan Larkin, JT Compher, David Perron AND you have an ice-cold goaltender… you don’t take the win for granted.
I really liked what I saw from Michael Rasmussen in this game. Quiet, but effective when on the ice. It’s great to see him use that big frame to his advantage.. And how about Joe Veleno? He led the team in ice time with over 23 (!!!!) minutes. Of course that’s going to happen when you’re so thin down the middle, but he played his ass off when the team really needed it.
Won’t get any easier from here! Carolina is in town on Thursday. Let’s get healthy and back on track.
