Red Wings drop fifth straight in tight battle with Oilers at Joe Louis Arena

(Photo by Andrew Knapik/MiHockey)
(Photo by Andrew Knapik/MiHockey)

 

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT – In an era where parity is at an all-time high, the Red Wings have lost by the slimmest of margins lately, margins that head coach Jeff Blashill said they need to turn in their favor.

Led by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ game-winning, power-play goal and a 21-save win from Jonas Gustavsson, the Oilers defeated the Wings 2-1 at Joe Louis Arena Sunday evening to hand Detroit its fifth-straight loss. One night after getting engaged on the same ice surface, Justin Abdelkader scored the Wings’ lone marker, while Jimmy Howard was solid, turning away 26 of 28 shots.

“In the last two games, we’re talking about tiny, tiny margins of difference,” Blashill said. “We’ve got to find a way to turn those margins in our favor. That’s the biggest thing. Even if you go over the last four or five games here, they’re not huge differences; they’re tiny differences, no different than we were winning six. Tiny differences, so we’ve got to find a way to turn those differences in our favor.”

Abdelkader echoed his head coach’s thoughts.

“We just need a little bit more out of everyone,” Abdelkader said. “We’ve gotta find ways to win these games, not lose them. Any time you lose some games in a row, you’ve gotta dig deep and find a way. It’s never easy to break a streak like that, we’ve just gotta find a way to get pucks to the net, bodies to the net. We’re doing a lot of good things out there, but just not doing enough to win.”

Abdelkader opened the game’s scoring the very next day, potting a rebound goal on a power play after he crashed the net with 11:07 left in the opening period. It was the exact type of play that Howard and the Wings said they need more of to be successful.

“I think when you’re going through this, you’ve just gotta throw pucks on net, just get pucks on net and usually when you do that, you can start your forecheck, you can start having teams in the other end and I think we’ve gotta get back to that,” Howard said.

With 3:21 to play in the frame, Pitlick beat Howard with a wrap-around goal to tie things up at one. Howard had the post covered, but the wrap attempt actually deflected off Smith’s stick and off Howard and in.

There’s certainly no doubt whether Connor McDavid left his mark at Joe Louis Arena. In his first and only trip to The Joe, McDavid set up the game-winning goal, threading the needle to Nugent-Hopkins just eight second into an Edmonton power play with under three minutes to play in the second period.

“McDavid made a great play in not pulling the trigger there on the first seam pass and he was able to find Nugent-Hopkins there in the slot,” Howard said.

“To be honest with you, I didn’t really get a good look at the first pass, so I was a little behind it, so I came across in the butterfly to try to take anything away and when I went to get up, he passed it back door, so I was caught in between.”

That goal stood up to be the game-winning marker, as the Wings struggled to get shots through to the net and find that equalizing goal.

“We’re all big-time disappointed, we’re frustrated, but you’ve gotta put that behind you, you’ve got no time for that at all,” Blashill said. “We’ve got to find a way to get better tomorrow, find a way to go into Philly and win on Tuesday.”