Saturday evening provided the Detroit Red Wings with one of their biggest tests of the season against the Boston Bruins, a divisional opponent with whom they are neck-and-neck in the chase for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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Unfortunately, the game slipped away from them in the final 20 minutes of play.
The Bruins, who entered the contest tied with Detroit in the standings, erased a 2–1 deficit in the third period with two quick goals on their way to a 4–2 victory at Little Caesars Arena.
Elias Lindholm beat goaltender John Gibson with a quick wrist shot through his five-hole at 6:22 to tie the score, followed by a short-side goal from defenseman Nikita Zadorov from the face-off circle just 3:20 later. It ultimately stood up as the game-winner.
Despite the loss, the Red Wings remain in the second overall Wild Card position in the tightly-packed Atlantic Division with 84 points. Unfortunately, they once again got zero help from the outside, thanks to victories from the red-hot Columbus Blue Jackets and the Ottawa Senators.
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The Montreal Canadiens rebounded from their 3-1 loss to Detroit on Thursday by beating the New York Islanders 7-3, moving two points ahead of Detroit and into the third overall spot in the division.
As it happens, Ottawa is Detroit’s next opponent on Tuesday night. At 81 points, they’re dangerously close in Detroit’s rear-view mirror.
Team captain Dylan Larkin missed his seventh consecutive contest with a lower-body injury he sustained on March 6. While he’s resumed practicing, he’s yet to be given the green light to return to game action.
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The opening 20 minutes of play were scoreless, despite J.T. Compher appearing to have beaten the buzzer with a goal in the waning seconds of the period. However, replays confirmed that the puck entered the net literally 0.2 seconds too late.
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However, Detroit was quick to find the back of the net in the second period thanks to a power-play tally from Lucas Raymond, his 22nd of the season.
But Detroit soon got into penalty trouble. David Perron was whistled for interference, and just seven seconds later, Moritz Seider was called for delay-of-game after flipping the puck over the glass.
It directly led to a goal from sniper David Pastrnak, who scored his 28th goal off a wicked one-timed shot just seconds into the 5-on-3 chance.
The Red Wings re-took the lead 4:06 into the third period, as Alex DeBrincat scored for the second time in as many games, beating Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman through traffic from the top of the face-off circle; it was his 35th of the season.
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Unfortunately, from that point on, Swayman was impenetrable. He made an acrobatic-like glove save on DeBrincat just minutes later, robbed rookie Emmitt Finnie on the doorstep, and made several other key saves to hold down the fort for his team.
Gibson, who also made a third-period save on Lukas Reichel’s penalty shot opportunity, finished with 22 saves on the 25 shots he faced; Swayman countered with 41 stops in one of his best performances of the season.
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