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Scary ending by Red Wings, but don’t pin it on Gibson, coach says
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- Scary ending by Red Wings, but don’t pin it on Gibson, coach says
DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings scored four goals, one from each line. They won the special teams battle. They limited shots against and chances allowed. They led by two goals in the third period.
It screams formula for success.
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Instead, they earned no points Saturday following a collapse that resulted in a 5-4 loss to the St. Louis Blues at Little Caesars Arena.
The Blues scored five goals on 15 shots against John Gibson, but that doesn't tell the story of how the Red Wings mismanaged the game and lacked attention to detail.
Coach Todd McLellan said Gibson had "no chance" on the first two goals and described the Blues' third and fourth goals as lasers from the hash marks. The winning goal by Aleksanteri Kaskimaki, his first in the NHL, came on a net-front tip with 6:54 remaining in the third period.
"You can look at five (goals) on 15 (shots), and it's not going to show up really well in his number column," McLellan said. "Maybe get one of them. But don't pin that on John Gibson by any means."
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The Red Wings (6-5-3) had allowed only 20 five-on-five goals their first 13 games. They yielded five against the Blues.
"I don't know how to explain it," Lucas Raymond said. "That was far from our standard, the way we want to play, what we've worked really hard to get to as a team."
The fade started in the second period, even before Jimmy Snuggerud scored with 28 seconds remaining to cut the Blues' deficit to 3-2.
"We have jobs to do based on our neutral zone; we didn't get it done," McLellan said. "So now they got momentum coming out of the gate. Then we get into the third. We have rules for back-checking and sort-outs. We didn't follow him. We give up a goal, a transition play for the fourth one, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
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"And the last one, you're going to give something like that, where Anton (Johansson) goes to knock the puck down and no one knows where it is, takes (Andreas Englund) to the corner. All of a sudden, they've shot in a deflection.
"We got sloppy. Those checking skills, I think the intent was still there, but the execution and the details in it weren't, and we paid the price."
The Red Wings began the day ranked in the top 10 in fewest goals allowed per game.
"Just the details slipped," Keegan Kolesar said. "Forecheck, neutral zone, D-zone, gave them grade-A opportunities. We leave a man in front of the net wide open, they made good on it.
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"We should have come away with the win. Just got to sit with this the rest of the day and we'll sit with it until the next game. And it's not a good feeling."
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