Detroit Red Wings get early Christmas gift with offensive explosion
The Detroit Red Wings got to open an early Christmas present Wednesday night at Little Caesars Arena.
Maybe it helped there was a Santa lookalike in the crowd or that the Wings’ home uniform basically amounts to a St. Nick cosplay.
Whatever the reason, the holiday spirit looked kindly upon the Wings and granted them their first winning streak in nearly a month by virtue of an offensive explosion that included a huge goal from a player who really needed it.
The 6-4 win over the Philadelphia Flyers represented a season-high in goals scored for this offensively challenged team. And no goal was bigger than Patrick Kane’s winner at 7:22 of the third period – his fourth of the season, but only his first goal since Nov. 13.
The two points and the winning streak are important for the Wings – and Derek Lalonde’s job security – as they struggle to climb back into contention. Earning their 30th point in 31 games puts them on pace for 79 points, but they’ll likely need at least 90 to get a wild-card playoff berth.
What was maybe the most low-key significant part of Wednesday’s win was the lineup change Lalonde made before the game when he juggled his lines, moving Andrew Copp up to center the second line in order to get more production out of Kane.
While Copp wasn’t directly responsible for Kane’s goal, the move still led to two points for Kane and three shots apiece from Kane and DeBrincat. It also had the secondary effect of getting defensive and offensive production out of the third line, which produced goals by J.T. Compher and Michael Rasmussen.
“It's going to be fluid,” Lalonde said. “It's just the way we are. Really liked the J.T. Compher line. They checked for us tonight and they won the position battle.
“And Copp, Kane and Cat, they produced some offense. There's some obviously elite IQ there. But at the same time, they found themselves spending a lot of time in their zone, and they gave up two goals. Think as a group, we probably could have managed their game a little better.”
Maybe. But the Flyers are a decent offensive team, while the Wings are the Eastern Conference’s worst offensive team. If Lalonde is looking for perfection, he needs to be more realistic and be willing to trade some defensive lapses for scoring.
Buoyed by another energetic crowd, though not quite as passionately vocal as Saturday night’s gathering against the Maple Leafs, the Wings maintained a steady march toward the Flyers’ net and peppered goaltender Samuel Ersson throughout the game.
The Wings outshot Philadelphia, 24-19, for the game. They rallied from an early one-goal deficit and took a 4-2 lead into the second intermission, holding an 18-9 shot advantage that earned them a hearty round of applause.
“We had four shots we gave up in the first (period), we held them to under 20 shots,” Lalonde said. “I mean, we'll take that game any night.
“Obviously, we didn't make it comfortable. But it was a couple individual plays, a couple bad bounces went against us. But of course, we'll take that game.”
The Flyers evened it at 4 with two quick goals early in the third period on some defensive lapses and a great individual play by Owen Tippett.
But the Wings looked like the better team almost the entire game. They took more shots and fewer penalties. They scored on the power play and seized on opportunities, especially on Moritz Seider’s heads-up stretch pass to Kane during the Flyers’ line shift.
As the puck hit the tape on Kane’s stick, a thought flashed across his mind. He was 18 when he made his NHL debut, but now he’s 36 and he’d been here many times before, streaking down the ice toward the left circle and bearing down on the goalie.
"Well, last game I had a similar play and I missed the net to the far side,” he said. “So I've come down that wing a few times in my career, and kind of scored going short side."
So Kane decided on the short side and sent a low, screaming wrist shot past Ersson’s stick.
“So, you know, sometimes that play happens once or twice in a row,” Kane said, “and you get redemption the second time. So that's what I was kind of thinking.”
The Wings also reached the .500 mark at home, where they improved to 7-7-2. And this year it looks like Santa’s feeling a little extra generous by granting the Wings five of their next six games at home, with a home-and-home coming up against Montreal, one of the NHL’s truly putrid teams.
“If you're going to stay in this battle, or if you're going to push to be in this battle, you’ve got to take care of home ice,” Lalonde said. “And for the most part, we've just been OK.
“A little run of late is a positive. But we got to keep winning (these) games and taking points at home.”
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on X @cmonarrez.