The Detroit Red Wings spent most of Saturday night’s Stadium Series game against the Blue Jackets at Ohio Stadium in Columbus chasing. They never led, and, after Denton Mateychuk scored the opening goal five minutes into the second period, Detroit couldn’t manage to stay tied for so much as four minutes running.
The Red Wings played their best hockey of the night in the third period, peppering Jackets goaltender Elvis Merzlikins with 21 shots. With just under 3:30 to play, Detroit finally found the breakthrough it had been building toward: a perfectly placed Alex DeBrincat wrist shot from the high slot, tying the game at three. After finally converting at the conclusion of a period-long barrage, the Red Wings looked well positioned for at least one point out of the night’s action, and the full two points were also squarely within their sights.
Instead, Justin Danforth stunned the visitors and delighted the home fans with a controversial goal just a minute and seven seconds after DeBrincat’s equalizer. He’d fought his way through Simon Edvinsson, catching the towering Swedish defenseman in the face with his stick on the way past. Danforth then blasted a slap shot, which Red Wings goaltender Cam Talbot stopped, only for Danforth to pounce on the rebound and tuck it home for the game-winning goal with the clock showing just 2:17 to play. Adam Fantilli would add an empty netter, and Columbus earned a 5–3 victory.
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From the opening shift of the game, it was clear both teams would be battling the ice conditions, as inevitably proves the case at the NHL’s outdoor showcases. The puck was bouncing, the pace slowed, and the boards spewed pucks into unpredictable chaos. Nonetheless, the two teams treated the crowd of 94,751 at the Horseshoe to an exciting, back-and-forth hockey game.
As for the Detroit performance, it was a clear upgrade on the lifeless, lethargic effort of Thursday night’s defeat. The Red Wings out-shot their hosts by a commanding 46–21 margin, and while the Jackets did find some dangerous moments on the counter attack, that shot differential accurately reflected the overall run of play.
The top line of Marco Kasper, Dylan Larkin, and Lucas Raymond—called out by coach Todd McLellan as “missing” after that Thursday loss to Columbus at Little Caesars Arena—put together a much more sustained threat than it had mustered two nights earlier. Detroit also got a goal on its scorching power play (a long range wrister from Patrick Kane, who, despite the adverse stickhandling conditions, found ways to take advantage of the reduced pace to the tune of a two-point night).
And yet, even if the process looked different and the unique setting fundamentally altered the playing surface, the end result for the Red Wings is a two-game set against a direct wild card rival from which they derived zero (0) points. That’s not back-breaking by any means with 22 games still to play, but it is without doubt a setback, potentially quite a costly one at that.
In service of its playoff aspirations, Detroit will of course want to reverse its present trend quickly. The first chance to do so will come Tuesday night, when the Carolina Hurricanes pay a visit to LCA.
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