The Detroit Red Wings, who are trying to end a long playoff drought, are battling for the top spot in the Atlantic Division. A more immediate concern is bouncing back from one of their worst outings of the season.
Detroit was blanked 5-0 at home by the New York Islanders on Thursday night. The Red Wings, who had won their previous two games, host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday afternoon.
Detroit coach Todd McLellan was baffled by his team’s latest performance.
“That was disappointing. We had a lot of momentum coming into the game and we were out-executed,” he said. “Scoring opportunities that we did have, we did nothing with. And we give up two goals on faceoff coverages. That epitomizes the night, really.”
Detroit trailed by four goals six minutes into the second period. It gave up just three total goals while defeating the New York Rangers on Sunday and Seattle on Tuesday.
“Their whole team had a good night,” captain Dylan Larkin said of the Islanders. “We didn’t win races. We were slow and give them credit, they played their game and we didn’t make it hard on them at all.”
Second-year forward Marco Kasper continued to struggle and his frustration bubbled to the surface on Thursday. Kasper has failed to contribute a point in the last 10 games. He was assessed a 10-minute misconduct penalty and also had a late-game fight with New York’s Tony DeAngelo.
Kasper had 19 goals and 18 assists in his rookie year.
“It’s difficult when you’ve entered the league and a lot of good things have happened for you and then you come back and all that momentum goes away. But confidence isn’t something that’s in your back pocket and you just lose it at the mall or leave it in your car,” McLellan said. “Over time, it erodes and you’ve got to find ways to stop the momentum and get it back. He’s frustrated and he got into a fight at the end of the game. Maybe that will trigger it.”
The Blue Jackets have won four of their last six games. They collected a 3-2 road win at Toronto on Thursday on Adam Fantilli’s overtime goal off a Zach Werenski feed.
“It was a great play by Werenski, he just kind of let me get my speed going there to make that defenseman hesitate for a half second and I was able to get a step on him,” Fantilli said.
Fantilli had a hand in all three goals, as he also scored in the second period and assisted on Dmitri Voronkov’s tally. It was his first multi-goal of the season after recording six such games last season.
“It was just a really good hockey game,” Columbus coach Dean Evason said. “It was back and forth a little bit. Both teams were playing hard and I think it was just a night where it was fun to obviously win but fun to be involved in, for sure.”
The Blue Jackets have proven to be tough in close games. All but one of their last eight wins came by a single goal.
