Wings Frustrated with More Struggles and Injuries

The Detroit Red Wings faced off against the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday evening. Tomas Tatar continued his hot streak with another goal that came early in the first period. And while the Red Wings were playing with poise throughout the first and second periods, the third was another story. The Flyers netted three goals past Jimmy Howard and then a fourth to seal the game on an empty net, and they won the game 6-3.The Red Wings also lost another player to the Injured Reserve list. Darren Helm has seven goals along with three assists in his first fifteen games back since his last time on the IR in mid-October. Late in the game, he suffered another injury, this time to his shoulder, which will sideline him at least through this upcoming weekend. Wings head coach Mike Babcock reported to the media about the need for leadership with such a thick current IR list.

“[We’ve] got to win games, that’s all there is to it,” he said. “There’s an opportunity for every one of these guys right here to lead, to grab a bigger piece and do their part. I thought Tatar was a factor in tonight’s game. To me, that means you get more. If you’re not a factor, you get less, it’s real simple.”

Tomas Tatar has five goals and six assists playing in twenty-one games this season. In his past four, including Wednesday, he has four points.

Even strength play has not been the Red Wings’ biggest fault this season. The power play and penalty kill, which are usually some of the best units in the National Hockey League, has been a downfall this year. Two weeks ago, the Red Wings sat at 18th in the league on their power play and now they sit at 11th, which is improvement, but not Red Wings fashion.

As for the penalty kill, they are currently sitting at ninth in the NHL with an 84.5 percent kill rate. The Red Wings are a team of perfection, and the fact that they are not playing perfect hurts their team’s momentum and energy.

“We didn’t do enough good things tonight to win the game and it starts with specialty teams,” Detroit defenseman Niklas Kronwall said. “We need to do a way better job on the power play. We had a lot of power plays in the second and we could not take advantage of it. They found a way on their power play to take advantage of their opportunities. We just have to find a way to get better.”

The Detroit Red Wings will begin to nurse their new injured player and try to bring it back together. They will be playing against the New Jersey Devils who are coming out of a tough loss to the Montreal Canadiens and are seeking vengeance against their next opponent.

The game will be played on Friday, December 6 at 7 p.m. in New Jersey.

* * *

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

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

Austin Goodman is the host of Octopi Hockeytown for Impact Sports

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Scoring Summary:

1st Period:

DET – 10:17 – T. Tatar (Snap) (D. Miller, J. Andersson)

PHI – 13:48 PPG – S. Downie (Snap) (S. Couturier, M. Read)

2nd Period:

DET – 8:24 – J. Franzen (Slap) (S. Weiss, G. Nyquist)

DET – 10:13 PPG – T. Tatar (Wrist) (M. Samuelsson, D. Alfredsson)

PHI – 16:28 – M. Read (Wrist) (S. Couturier, S. Hartnell)

3rd Period:

PHI – 5:15 PPG – C. Giroux (Wrist) (K. Timonen, S. Hartnell)

PHI – 8:28 – S. Couturier (Wrist) (S. Downie, M. Read)

PHI – 9:58 PPG – S. Hartnell (Slap) (C. Giroux, M. Streit)

PHI – 19:01 EN – S. Couturier (Wrist) (M. Raffl)

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Three Stars:

First: Sean Couturier

(2 G, 2A, +3, 3 shots, 2PIM, 10:57 TOI)

Second: Tomas Tatar:

(2G, 6 shots, 4 hits, 16:14 TOI)

Third: Nicklas Grossman

(1 shot, 1 hit, 23:41 TOI)

——————————————————————————————————————————————