Penalties Contribute to Another Loss

November 24, 2013

After a burst of energy provided by Gustav Nyquist on Thursday at Joe Louis Arena, the Detroit Red Wings were stumped yet again on home ice in their second confrontation with the Ottawa Senators. With a score of 4-2 on Saturday evening, the Sens scored two goals in both the first and the third period to seal the deal against the Wings for the second time.The Senators beat the Wings both physically and mentally. While the Red Wings did not have Daniel Alfredsson in their lineup due to a groin injury, there was also another loss to their lineup with the ‘magic man’, Pavel Datsyuk, taking a late cheap shot to the head. It put him out of play for Sunday’s game against the Sabres due to NHL mandatory concussion evaluation.

With the physicality of Saturday’s game, both teams had to defend their zone and capitalize on opportunities when present. The Senators had a bit more of a chip on their shoulder to finish the job off with a strong victory over a veteran Wings team.

“Obviously a huge win for our group,” Senators coach Paul MacLean told the team website. “The penalty-killing units got a lot of work, the power-play units got a lot of work. … It was like two or three different games. I think both teams gave the referees an awful lot of work to do, but at the end of the day, we came out with a win.”

The Detroit Red Wings were posted many scoring opportunities, but were not clutch in the right time of the game.

“We had an extended 5-on-3 in the third with a chance, and we didn’t score,” Detroit coach Mike Babcock told Fox Sports Detroit. “The other thing is, you can’t kill penalties all night long. … You deserve what you get, you’ve got to look out for your stick and you can’t be in the box all night, no one gets any rhythm like that.

Capitalizing on opportunities has been the struggle at the Joe as of late, along with massive fundamental breakdowns in the latter parts of the third period.

“I thought they had three chances in the first period and two of them went in,” Babcock said. “The other team’s going to get some chances, that’s just the way it is, and you have to find a way to execute and not break down.

“One of them was on a line change where we found a way to mismanage the puck and it ends up in our net; that’s a tough one. The other one we have enough people back and once again had a little miscue and it’s in our net.

Mistakes and miscues alike are massive in a game of inches such as hockey. The Red Wings’ struggles will continue with more injuries piling up which include Danny DeKeyser, Daniel Alfredsson, Todd Bertuzzi and now, Pavel Datsyuk, as well as the bottom two lines continuing to not be able to capitalize on advantages that are there.

The club will have a chance of redemption Saturday, November 24 at 5 p.m. EST in Buffalo, New York.

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Information from the Detroit Red Wings was used in this report.

For more information on the Detroit Red Wings and NHL hockey from analysts and journalists at Michigan State University – tune into Octopi Hockeytown podcasts and embrace the Spartan debate at www.impact89fm.org/sports

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Austin Goodman is the host of Octopi Hockeytown for Impact Sports

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Scoring Summary:

1st Period:

DET – 13:23 PPG – D. Helm (Tip-in) (T. Tatar, J. Kindl)

OTT – 14:33 – C. MacArthur (Wrist) (B. Ryan, P. Wiercioch)

OTT – 15:44 – C. Neil (Wrist) (C. Conacher, Z. Smith)

2nd Period:

No Scoring Recorded.

3rd Period:

DET – 1:08 PPG – P. Datsyuk (Wrist) (N. Kronwall, H. Zetterberg)