NHL
NHL Regular
Season
Lucas Raymond sealed the Red Wings' shutout win over the Avalanche in Denver Monday night. Ron Chenoy / Imagn Images
The highlight of the night came just 33 seconds in. The dagger came with 31 seconds left. But it was everything in between that made Monday one of the Detroit Red Wings’ best wins of the season — and maybe the best.
Just two days after the Colorado Avalanche came into Detroit and rolled to a 5-0 win, the Red Wings returned the favor with a stifling defensive performance to win 2-0 in Denver.
Advertisement
The Avalanche aren’t at full strength right now, down star forward Martin Nečas, and they’ve now lost five of their last seven. Montreal and Ottawa beat them last week, too. But the Red Wings had just seen what Colorado’s star power can do even during a down stretch. Shutting it down the way they did Monday is no small feat, no matter the timing. It was the first time all year the Avalanche had been held scoreless.
For a Red Wings team looking to prove this year will be different from their collapses late in the last two seasons, there were two encouraging elements of the way Monday’s win played out: team defense, and how quickly they bounced back after a rocky week at home.
Take nothing away from goaltender John Gibson, who stopped all 21 shots he saw two days after being pulled after two periods against the same opponent. It was his fourth shutout of the season, tied for second most in the league, and all in the last two months. After a rough start, he’s carried the Red Wings in that span.
Yet the team in front of Gibson deserves equal credit for the clean sheet Monday. After taking a 1-0 lead when Marco Kasper finished off a 2-on-1 feed from Lucas Raymond in the game’s first minute, the Red Wings held Colorado to just 12 shots through the first two periods.
Colorado came out pushing to begin the third period, but the Red Wings never broke, and were especially impressive in the final 12 minutes — allowing just two Avalanche shots on goal in the deciding minutes, both by defensemen.
Meanwhile the Red Wings doubled Colorado’s shot total in that span, and were credited with more blocked shots (three) than they let through, sealing the game with a Raymond empty-netter with 31 seconds to play.
“No weak links tonight,” Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan told reporters after the game. “And it takes that much to beat a team like that.”
Advertisement
Seider took more than 10 minutes at 5-on-5 against MacKinnon, holding the NHL’s leading goal scorer to only minimal chances after MacKinnon went for two goals and an assist as the No. 1 star of Saturday’s game. It was an impressive response from him, and the kind of game his Norris Trophy candidacy will be built on. He may not have hit the scoresheet, but he made sure one of the game’s most dangerous scorers left frustrated. Seider ended up logging 27 minutes, 34 seconds in the game.
Seider does that often, though. He’s become the Red Wings’ best player. What really made McLellan’s “no weak links” point ring true were the quieter showings — like the way Jacob Bernard-Docker stepped up with Seider to tackle the MacKinnon assignment. With Seider’s normal partner Simon Edvinsson out through the Olympic break, Bernard-Docker also saw a whole lot of MacKinnon, helping to keep him in check while playing a season-high 21:41. MacKinnon finished the night at minus-2.
The effort from the Red Wings forwards in making the neutral and defensive zones harder for Colorado to navigate was there, too. The Avalanche got their zone time, as they always seem to, but Gibson wasn’t under nearly the same level of siege as he was Saturday, a credit to the whole team.
As for Detroit’s response and resilience, it’s becoming a theme. The Red Wings haven’t gone consecutive games without at least a point in more than two months, but that streak felt distinctly in danger following Saturday’s loss.
After that one, Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin stood in the locker room and said “it’s not like we’re playing against guys that can’t be beat. … We have to go into their building with something to prove.”
It’s one thing to say that, but another to execute on it. The Red Wings did both. Larkin had a pair of assists on the night, his effort checking was most noticeable. Not only was that key to the team defense, it was him backing up his words to secure a much-needed win.
Advertisement
Had the Red Wings dropped this one, too, they’d have been carrying a four-game skid into Utah, where they’ll play their final game before the break on Wednesday. The razor-thin margins in the Atlantic Division this year make any losing streak a big deal, but one could argue it would have been especially problematic for the Red Wings on the heels of their recent late-season slumps.
Instead, they earned a statement win against the league’s top team. Two of their divisional foes did the same last week by even wider margins. Interestingly, six of the Avalanche’s nine regulation losses this season have come against six different Atlantic Division opponents.
But none of those teams blanked the Avalanche, nor did they win in Denver. And none have the same late-season baggage to overcome as the Red Wings.
The two points earned Monday count the same as any other game, of course, and there’s a lot more work ahead starting Wednesday. But this was one the Red Wings needed, and they won it in a manner that will bode well if they can replicate it down the stretch.
If it’s not their best win of the season, it has to at least be close.
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms
Find the hidden link between sports terms
Play today's puzzle
Max Bultman has covered the Red Wings for The Athletic since 2018. He previously was a general assignment writer in Detroit and is a 2017 graduate of the University of Michigan. Follow Max on Twitter @m_bultman
Hockey News