Larkin, Talbot Power Red Wings to 2-1 Win Over Visiting Sabres

DETROIT—"When we find a quality game like this, since I've been here, it's usually driven by Dylan," said coach Derek Lalonde of his captain following the Red Wings 2-1 Saturday night at Little Caesars Arena.  In the first period, Dylan Larkin's finger prints showed up in the wrong places for Detroit, with Larkin guilty of a power play turnover that sent Alex Tuch in for a breakaway that he converted to give the visiting Buffalo Sabres a 1-0 lead.  In the second, however, Larkin converted twice on the power play, inverting his own fortunes and his team's by providing enough offense for his Red Wings to grind out two points with a workmanlike third period.

For Detroit, even the two power play goals were more a byproduct of sheer persistence than brilliant choreography.  On the first, Larkin pounced on an opportunity presented to him by Patrick Kane after a failed Sabre clearing attempt, with Larkin shoveling a bouncing puck through Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to tie the score 7:49 into the second period.  Not quite seven minutes later, Larkin repeated the feat and lifted the Red Wings into their first lead, via a two-man game with Alex DeBrincat in which the diminutive winger received a pass from his captain in the low slot, faked toward the net then spun out, only to return the puck to Larkin, who had slipped beneath the Buffalo penalty kill.

After the team's second straight second period with two power play goals, Larkin said that the unit is playing with "a lot of confidence" but also pointed out that that confidence "had to be built" through some trial and error in personnel tinkering.  "We got the five guys on the ice that are out there, and you see the confidence now, you see the puck movement, you see the plays," he said.  "We have five really talented players out there. We move around a lot...And tonight it was probably on display even more so because of the way they kill. We just were finding passing lanes and winning pucks back and attacking the net. It's huge when you're power play can go out there and provide two goals like that."

Larkin's spiraling celebratory fist bump upon seeing the puck connect with the net's twine reflected the captain's catharsis at not just atoning for his mistake but paying it forward.  "This guy was hard on himself after the first and really picked the boys back up there in the second period and buried a couple for us," said goaltender Cam Talbot after the game, gesturing toward Larkin seated to his right at the podium.  "And that's just what you want your leader to do."

Larkin himself, in keeping with his status as the Red Wings' leader, preferred to defer credit back to Talbot, saying that his goaltender was "truly the difference maker, the one that got us two points," while in the same breath adding, "I put the one goal against on myself and turning that puck over—pretty unacceptable."

Talbot, too, was in the mood for sharing credit after his 31 save effort, lauding the effort of the skaters in front of him to minimize the challenge of those stops.  "I thought the guys did a good job of boxing out tonight," he said.  "I had my sight lines for pretty much every shot tonight, so any time we can do that, it puts us in a great spot.  If I can see the puck, I try to control it the best I can: Put the puck in the corner, eat it, swallow it, do whatever I can to kill the play.  I thought that where we gave up the shots from tonight wasn't as taxing as maybe earlier on in the season."

Thanks to Larkin, the Red Wings carried a two-goal lead into the third, and between Talbot and those defensive zone box outs, Detroit was able to grind its way to victory. Lalonde didn't see a perfect closing effort from his group, but it was nonetheless and effective one.  "We gave up 13 shots," he noted of the final frame.  "I have to go back and look back at actually what Grade A's we had [against].  I don't feel like there was a ton there...So that's a positive third, and we had a couple looks ourselves.  With that said, when we did give up an opportunity, Cam was there.  And again, that's just a high-end offensive team pushing.  They're gonna get their looks...I thought our defense was positive. I thought we stayed on our toes.  The one area I still think we can keep growing is just a few more plays out of zone to be a little better in those situations."

In the end, the process paled in comparison to Detroit's need to bank two points and in so doing restore good feeling numbed by the Red Wings' three-game losing skid entering the evening.  "It's something we needed, especially how things have been going," Larkin said of the evening's result.  "Kind of the roller coaster we've been on. That was still not perfect but a good performance at home, good win on home ice."

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