Imperfect Red Wings Find Winning Recipe vs. Pittsburgh

DETROIT—In the final minute of the second period of the Detroit Red Wings 4–2 win over the visiting Penguins, Pittsburgh ought to have tied the game.  First, Anthony Beauvillier, then Evgeni Malkin stared into a net Detroit goaltender Alex Lyon was in no position to defend, but instead of finding a red light, the two Penguins found only Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider.

First with his stick, then with his skates, a sliding Seider knocked aside two Pittsburgh volleys, allowing Andrew Copp to usher the puck away from danger.  "He saved a goal," Lyon—who made 23 saves of his own in the winning effort—summated simply.  "Whenever players sell out like that and help me out, it's just so appreciated. Mo, he does that all the time, but I thought all the guys were laying it on the line tonight, and I think it showed on the scoreboard."

Seider's defensive effort was as spectacular as it was aberrant from the rest of the Red Wings' performance without the puck on the evening.  It's not that Detroit was ineffective, quite the contrary.  Instead, the Red Wings were calm and clean, even clinical, in their own end for the bulk of Tuesday evening's victory.  They killed plays quickly and exited their zone smoothly on the road to victory.

Seider's heroics held the score at 2–1 Detroit after two periods, but the Penguins tied the game just over three minutes into the third, with Drew O'Connor notching his second of the night on a goal mouth scramble the Red Wings weren't able to clean up.  However, with five-and-a-half minutes to play, Detroit returned the favor on the power play, amidst more chaos in the crease.

An Erik Gustafsson point blast caromed off the post and back out off the back of Pittsburgh goaltender Alex Nedejkovic, where an opportunistic JT Compher poked it home to put the Red Wings back in front.  Detroit had taken two previous leads, but it was the third that would last, with Dylan Larkin clinching the result via an empty netter with 14 seconds to play.

The Red Wings weren't dominant Tuesday night, but they were effective in the right places and at the right times, most of all at the net front.  Between's Seider's kick save and Compher's opportunism, Detroit made the precise plays it needed to wind up on the right side of the evening's result.

"That's the recipe in this league," asserted Lyon.  "You gotta score.  You gotta be smart and play the game the right way, that fine line of attacking but still playing smart at the same time.  I think it's just about really finding the recipe and continuing to hone that."

Coach Todd McLellan—who earned his second win as Red Wing coach and 600th in the NHL with the result—declined to take schematic credit for revamping the defense that made that "recipe" effective Tuesday night.

"To be perfectly honest, we haven't say down with the group and said, 'Hey, in the D zone, we're doing these things.' I just think that some of the other things we've worked on puts us in the D zone a less amount of time," he said.  "The next step could very well be D zone. Let's adjust a few things. Let's talk about it. But, for the most part, they're continuing one with some of the principles they've used in the past. Maybe getting after it a little harder, little faster, maybe a little smarter, like we talked about."

He cautioned against the idea that two wins in three games since his takeover signaled Detroit's arrival as a defensive juggernaut, instead pointing to work left to do and the inevitability of progress (temporarily) unraveling.

"We still have work to do in the D zone," McLellan proclaimed.  "We can get wandering around, a little bit loose, but some of the backchecking principles, the sort out stuff, we're starting to see happen more regularly.  I think the players value that, so it's taking the chances against down slowly.  And odds are we'll have a day where we give it all back, and we'll just have to start over.  That's just how it goes...Never perfect."

Of course, McLellan is right.  The good feeling and winning recipe that followed his arrival aren't intractable.  They will be tested and destabilized, before the season's end.  But as the Red Wings bid goodbye to 2024 before their home fans at Little Caesars Arena one last time before the calendar turns over, it was impossible to feel as though they hadn't turned over a new leaf.  The recipe might not work every night and might have come too late for the 2025 postseason, but for the first time all season, Detroit has an air of stability, soundness, and even strength.  Three games into McLellan's tenure, that is undeniable progress.

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