Detroit Red Wings players Niklas Kronwall and Dylan Larkin and coach Jeff Blashill answer questions after the 3-1 loss to the Hurricanes on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018 at Little Caesars Arena. Video by Helene St. James/DFP
The Detroit Red Wings are hurting from a lack of shots and a lack of key penalty kill personnel.
They weren’t good enough in either area on Saturday at Little Caesars Arena, leaving them to explain a 3-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. The Wings started poorly, allowed two power plays goals on three opportunities, and were outshot, 30-24. Shot attempts were 57-52 to the Hurricanes.
“It’s hard to get shots through, but we make it even harder when we have good chances and we’re passing up shots,” Henrik Zetterberg said. “We have to take our opportunities and get pucks on net.
“You kind of get lured into a little safety and you think you have that extra play to make instead of putting the puck on net and shooting. Because most of the time we have at least one of our guys inside, too, so there’s a good chance we will be there for second chances, but there will never be a second chance if we don’t shoot the first time.”
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Niklas Kronwall said the Wings “shot ourselves in the foot there a little bit. We made it way too hard on ourselves. They have a very good forecheck, no doubt, but we also made it a lot harder on ourselves than it had to be.
“We had the puck on our stick more often than none, and we ended up just giving it back to them. It’s hard to play that way.”
For the second straight game the Wings got into early penalty trouble, and took entirely too long to respond. They were outshout, 6-0, after 5 minutes and 9-2 after 10 minutes in the first period.
“We have to find ways to be getting consistently out of our zone for a full 60 minutes,” Dylan Larkin said.
Larkin had a great scoring chance in the opening seconds when he drove to the net but wound up shooting wide. Zetterberg and Anthony Mantha also had grade-A scoring chances. Tomas Tatar scored during an early power play; a good sign for a team that had gone 2-for-33 over the previous 10 games. The penalty kill struggled, though, allowing two goals for a second straight game.
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The Wings are without some of their best penalty killers, though, as forwards Luke Glendening, Darren Helm and Justin Abdelkader all are nursing injuries. Another PKer joined sick bay on Saturday, as Trevor Daley left in the second period with a lower-body injury. Blashill didn’t have an immediate update on Daley beyond saying he’s very questionable for Monday’s game at New Jersey (7 p.m., Fox Sports Detroit).
“Personnel has a great amount to do with it,” Blashill said regarding a penalty kill that has allowed eight goals the last 27 times shorthanded. “Now, that doesn’t mean that the guys that are out there aren’t going to be real good killers. But they need reps. They need reps. Now we’d like them to get reps and not get scored on, but that’s part of it – they need reps, and they need to continue to work through it.
“We had a couple mistakes made by guys that haven’t had lots of reps. That’s not why the puck necessarily went in, but that’s part of it.”
Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Check out our Red Wings Xtra app on Apple and Android!
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