Yesterday afternoon in Nashville, in a clash of desperate sides with just one win between them entering the action, the visiting Detroit Red Wings claimed a 5-2 victory over the Predators. Let’s take a moment to review the action from a sorely needed Detroit victory.
© Steve Roberts-Imagn Images
The Game in One Quote
“Everything gets magnified early in the season when there’s such a small sample size, but you never really wanna lose two in a row, definitely don’t want to lose three in a row. So it was good to right the ship a little bit and get a good feeling back in the room for a big game on Tuesday.” -Andrew Copp
The two points were of course critical for a team that knows all too well the precarious margin between playoff teams and also rans, but Saturday’s victory was as much about vibes as anything else for the Red Wings. Perhaps more specifically, as Copp’s assessment alludes to, the win was about the spiral Detroit warded off by claiming those two points. Arresting the negative momentum from the home-and-home sweep at the hands of the Rangers was pivotal, and the Red Wings got it done. However, in that last sentence, Copp also points to the fact that the relief Detroit achieved Saturday is temporary, and the Red Wings will have to re-earn that peace Tuesday night on Long Island, when they take on the New York Islanders.
Number to Know: 4.34
-There was lots of chaos built into yesterday’s game: lead changes, the energy of Marco Kasper’s debut (more on this in a moment), and ambient desperation made manifest in post-whistle extracurriculars as the game progressed. With all that in mind, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that Alex Lyon was excellent in net for Detroit. He made a spectacular save to deny Steven Stamkos at five-on-three, but even that remarkable stop almost obscured the overall strength of his performance.
Per MoneyPuck, Nashville accrued a 4.34-4.11 advantage in expected goals over the course of Saturday’s game, and that’s even with two Red Wing empty netters boosting their total. Lyon was excellent in holding the Predators to two goals amidst that pressure. It doesn’t necessarily suggest he must immediately supplant Cam Talbot as Detroit’s primary option in goal, but it is at the very least, an encouraging data point for Lyon’s form moving forward.
Observations
-Kasper Debuts, Assists, Provides Immediate Spark
Marco Kasper made his season debut, playing in his second ever NHL game, yesterday. He picked up his first career point via an assist on Vladimir Tarasenko’s first period goal, but getting on the scoresheet was just a fraction of his impact for Detroit.
Kasper is nimble in carrying the puck through the neutral zone, but he doesn’t get greedy looking for offense off the rush once he makes it to the attacking third. Doing so is a frequent pitfall for young players looking to produce, with forced plays at the offensive blue line easily becoming rush chances against. Instead, Kasper often carries through neutral ice in service of dumping the puck in to initiate the forecheck.
It’s a style that earned rave reviews from coach Derek Lalonde. When asked about Kasper’s performance Saturday, he replied, “Loved it. Trust him in every situation. We were hoping he’d give us a little spark. I just like what it does for the balance of our lines. It gives us some flexibility.”
To that point, I wrote after Thursday’s loss about a certain imbalance between the grinding and scoring (at the risk of a bit of over-simplification) components of the Red Wings forward corps. Saturday, Kasper showed he can help remedy that problem. He freed Joe Veleno up to move to the wing, where Lalonde said he had his best game of the season, and Kasper himself can also play as an energetic winger when circumstances call for it. Kasper promise as a prospect is his “hard skill”—to use the buzz word of our scouting time—and he showed proof of concept of just that Saturday.
–Tarasenko Scores, Still More to Give
The simplest way to understand Vladimir Tarasenko’s role for the Red Wings is scoring. You want a heavy game with that, but the goals themselves are the most tangible marker of his contributions, and he pitched his second tally in the Winged Wheel Saturday afternoon, with help from some excellent toil along the boards from Kasper and Jonatan Berggren.
On Friday, before the Red Wings traveled to Nashville, Tarasenko—explaining his mindset in evaluating his first few games with Detroit—told The Hockey News, “Just the process and work in the practices. Can I play better? Yeah I can play better. I’m here to help the team.” It wasn’t a curt answer; it was just Tarasenko succinctly summing up what he sees as an obvious fact. Even after the goal Saturday, I would imagine Tarasenko still sees room to grow his game within the Red Wing lineup. However, he also stands to be one of the primary beneficiaries from Kasper’s arrival (whether they actually play on a line together or not) and the overall sense of balance the young Austrian helped Detroit achieve up front with him in the fold.
