Quincey Fumbles and Lighting Capitalize

November 11, 2013

Even with many set-up opportunities and solid goaltending from Jimmy Howard through 60 minutes, the Tampa Bay Lightning stunned the Detroit Red Wings with a gut-wrenching overtime goal to win.While the Wings have come out this season with many new weapons and more to throw out on the ice, – the standings do not show it. They are sitting in the third place in the Atlantic division after 18 games played. While they are fourth place in the Eastern Conference, the Wings also have the most games played in the entire conference.

If one was to point fingers in this game, the fingers could be pointing at the defensive pair of Jakub Kindl and Kyle Quincey. With Quincey choosing a poor path behind the net, and Kindl following after him to leave a wide open Teddy Purcell in the slot, the pair failed to protect the net and slipped up against the youth of the Lightning.

Again, the Red Wings’ first line was the only shining light of productivity. If Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk were not on the kind of streak that they are on right now (Zetterberg getting points in five consecutive games), then the Red Wings would be in a much worse position.

With no postgame comments from the Red Wings’ personnel, stats are the way to go for this one.

In their last two games, they have lost in the later parts. Fundamentally, the Red Wings broke down and made amateur mistakes, such as coughing up the puck or trying to get too fancy in their own zone.

With the amount of youth on the Wings’ bench, it is pretty evident this would happen in the earlier parts of the season. Now the question is – can the Wings pull it together at home (*Only italic in certain circumstances) which, in recent years, has been their strong suit?

This season, the Red Wings are 6-3-4 at home and 6-3 on the road. Victories are not found to come easy in the NHL. But at home, the Red Wings are in a position where they need to step it up.

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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 – 3:51 – H. Zetterberg (Snap) (Unassisted)

TBL – 10:11 – R. Malone (Wrist) (M. Carle, N. Thompson)

2nd Period:

TBL – 12:50 – S. Stamkos (Snap) (V. Hedman)

3rd Period:

DET – 15:48 – H. Zetterberg (Snap) (D. DeKeyser)

Overtime: