Gustavsson Shows Weakness, Injuries Destroy Wings in Loss

December 20, 2013

Continuing their slump against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night at Joe Louis Arena, losing by a score of five to two, the Detroit Red Wings have increased their losing streak to six straight. Jonas Gustavsson was pulled for the first time this season after allowing three goals in only a mere 18 minutes and 17 seconds into the first period.Although Petr Mrazek came into the game with little to work with, the youngster from the Czech Republic stopped 17 shots on 19 attempts, but it was too late for the Red Wings. Having gone down by too much too early, they could not seem to pull themselves out of the hole that they dug.

The Anaheim Ducks are currently second place in the NHL with 53 points, sitting a game and two points behind a 55-point Chicago Blackhawk team. Bruce Boudreau is a veteran coach in the league who made the move to coach the Ducks in late 2011 after finishing off his time coaching with the Washington Capitals. Boudreau spoke with the media about how he is not too content with one victory against the Wings this season.

“We took advantage of a team that was hurting,” Bruce Boudreau said. “Listen, we beat Detroit 5-2 in the first game we played them last year, too. How’d it end up? It’s just … that was no way the Detroit Red Wings that you’re going to see in January.”

Niklas Kronwall is extremely frustrated with the way his team has been playing in wake of losing many players to injury, including the loss of Johan Franzen in Sunday’s showdown against Tampa Bay. Gustav Nyquist has recently been listed as day-to-day healing an injured groin. This turns up the injury list one more notch, which includes six starting forwards, a starting defensemen in Danny DeKeyser and the Red Wings starting goaltender, Jimmy Howard.

The team realizes that they have to work through these hard times, because at this point, Kronwall told the media he is, “embarrassed”.

“I thought we started off pretty good and then everything just fell apart,” said Red Wings defenseman Kronwall, who was a minus-2. “There’s no excuse whatsoever. Injuries [have] got nothing to do with it. We’re a better team than we showed tonight. That was embarrassing at times.”

Mike Babcock also spoke to the media regarding a quick start of productivity shadowed by a quick trio of goals, that set the momentum permanently in favor of the Ducks.

“I liked how we started,” Babcock said. “Things were going pretty good for about three minutes. Obviously, it didn’t go very well for us. They shot the puck in the net and we lost momentum very fast and didn’t have a very good effort from that point on.”

The frustration set in quick for the Red Wings as Kyle Quincey put a hit on the Ducks’ enforcer and goal scoring machine, Ryan Getzlaf, 14 minutes and 20 seconds into the first period. Quincey got a boarding major and a game misconduct, which left the Wings down another man through the remainder of the game.

Brendan Shanahan has been working feverously to make sure that player safety is under control. Yet, as the game gets quicker through time and youthful talent, it also gets more dangerous and much more prone for risky plays and irrational injuries.

“I was kind of trying to stop and hit the puck, and he made a play with his stick horizontal to the back, which is obviously what you don’t do in this League right now,” said Getzlaf, who had recorded a point in the previous 14 games he played. “That’s what caused it to be so dangerous.”

Although Getzlaf thinks that Quincey was wrong for laying the hit, knowing his positioning on the ice, he also told the media that he takes partial blame for his personal positioning at that point on the ice.

“I watched it after and I was in a tough position,” Getzlaf said. “I’ve got to take some of the responsibility in putting myself there. I don’t think he needed to crosscheck me in that kind of a position, and obviously I went into the boards pretty hard. That’s why it ended up the way it did.”

The Detroit Red Wings are currently trying to get a regulation victory, snap their six-game losing streak and rehabilitate themselves into the powerhouse that the NHL is used to seeing.

The Wings will face off against the Calgary Flames on Thursday, December 19 at 7:30 p.m. EST at the Joe Louis Arena.

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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 – 3:15 – T. Jurco (Backhand) D. Miller, K. Quincey

ANA – 3:40 – J. Silfverberg (Wrist) F. Beauchemin, A. Cogliano

ANA – 5:29 – N. Bonino (Wrist) D. Winnik, T. Selanne

ANA – 18:17 – C. Perry (Snap) B. Lovejoy

ANA – 19:59 – S. Vatanen (Slap) A. Cogliano, S. Koivu

2nd Period:

ANA – 12:26 – S. Koivu (Backhand) A. Cogliano, S. Vatanen