DETROIT — On Sunday afternoon at Little Caesars Arena, the Red Wings played their way to a convincing 3–0 victory over the visiting Vegas Golden Knights.
Petr Mrazek backstopped the victory with an 18-save shutout, while Detroit got the offense it needed from from three youngsters. Albert Johansson (who walked tidily around Knights goaltender Ilya Samsonov for the game's opening goal) was the oldest goal scorer of the night at 24, which Lucas Raymond (22) and Marco Kasper (20) adding third period insurance markers to put the game out of reach of a weary Knights team that had lost in a shootout a night prior in Buffalo.
"Looking up at the end of the night at the scoreboard was a real good thing for our team, considering the opponent, the type of game they play," said coach Todd McLellan after the game. "So it was a pretty good night for a lot of our players and should give us some confidence."
Here's more on how the Red Wings played their way into the shutout win.
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Mrazek Getting "Swagger Back," Continues to Stake Claim to Crease
It wasn't a high volume night in net for Mrazek, but he did everything asked of him, including a few moments of brilliance when Vegas applied pressure and created chaos around his crease.
"His performance was excellent," said McLellan. "They didn't have many shots, but they had some good ones that got through traffic, and it was last minute–type saves and then the scramble in and around the paint. I thought he handled it well."
Obviously, the bottom line is unimpeachable for Mrazek, though there were moments when he was slightly less than convincing. Over his career, Mrazek's worst form seems to include a proclivity for 'swimming' in his crease, struggling to track the play and losing his relationship to his net. That wasn't the case Sunday afternoon, but at times there was an uncertainty to his game—peaking over his shoulder to make sure a puck hadn't squeaked through.
In the third, a Mark Stone slapper that didn't look especially dangerous slipped through him, nearly gifting the Knights a goal. Mrazek came up slowly following that sequence and had to be attended to by a trainer, but he stayed in the game. After the game, he joked that he "got it in a spot where you don't want to know where I got it," temporarily incapacitating him but nothing serious.
He's now made three straight starts and is clearly McLellan's first choice in net following his return to Detroit at the deadline. Of the decision to stick with him, McLellan said, "He's given us some confidence…You just feel it on the bench. When a save is made, the energy that's on the bench right now with Petr in the pipes…we sense that, we feel it, so we chose to go with him again."
Mrazek himself said that his sense of comfort has grown with the continuity he's gotten since coming back to the Red Wings. Before his current run of three straight starts (and two wins), Mrazek hadn't played since Jan. 27 with the Blackhawks. "Playing those three games in a row definitely helps…[I] haven't been playing for a while before, and once you're playing, you're getting your confidence back, your swagger back, so I've felt every game that I've played, I've felt better and better," he said after Sunday's shutout.
It's hard to imagine McLellan would turn away from Mrazek heading into Tuesday's game in Washington, considering the coach stuck with him following Friday's loss in Carolina and was rewarded Sunday for doing so.
Kasper, Johansson Keep Playing Way into More Confidence
Both Marco Kasper and Albert Johansson scored for the Red Wings Sunday, but in both cases, the goal alone fails to encapsulate the scope of their influence on the game and the result for Detroit.
The Red Wings second line—Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat on Kasper's wings—was by far its most consistently dangerous Sunday afternoon. Per MoneyPuck.com, the trio played 13:05 together at five-on-five, accruing a 2.033–0.381 edge in expected goals and 1–0 advantage in actual goals.
Kasper effectively clinched the game with just under nine minutes to play, when he re-directed home an Erik Gustafsson pass to make it 3–0 Detroit, but he could easily have had scored another (perhaps even two) based on the chances he found for himself.
In moving from Dylan Larkin's wing on the top line (where he looked completely at home) to the 2C hole with Kane and DeBrincat, Kasper continues to show the intelligence and maturity in his game. He was involved in everything for his line—killing plays and winning back pucks in the defensive zone, transitioning the puck from end to end, and, of course, actually finishing chances in the O zone. In so doing, he's shown a natural understanding of what has to change in moving from wing back to center and in adjusting to his new linemates. Whether on Larkin's wing or centering his own line, Kasper has been a live wire every night for Detroit.
"I'm just trying to do my best wherever, whatever spot I'm put in, and every time I step on the ice, I'm trying to be the most competitive player on the ice—win all my battles, skate hard, and just do the right things," Kasper said after the game. He certainly did the right things Sunday afternoon, and that's no exception to his recent run of form.
Meanwhile, Johansson showed off a goalscorer's hands in weaving his way around Samsonov and tucking home the puck, but again, the goal itself was just the start of what he did well.
After the game, McLellan gushed about the 24-year-old D man's performance, saying, "His game tonight was outstanding. There were so many little things that he did when we didn't have the puck in our end—breaking up plays, good read and react type stuff, situations where there was something dangerous about to happen and he was right there to kill the play. Obviously his goal was a very nice goal, a poised goal, so those are all good things. His overall play, I don't think there's anybody in the hockey world that would walk into the arena and go, 'That guy's a rookie.' So just his poise, his growth, his confidence, competitiveness, all the things that are really hard to measure…I think have made him a really good player for us."
Johansson finished the night with 21:49 of ice time, trailing only his partner Simon Edvinsson's 22:37. Those are minutes he earned and minutes he won for his team. In keeping with McLellan's assessment, he looks a completely different player to the one who very much showed his youth early in the season. No matter how the season ends for Detroit, Johansson's emergence since McLellan's takeover is a tremendous positive to take from the campaign.
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