Yahoo Sports Red Wings Bounce Back for "Greasy" 5-2 Win in Nashville
On Friday afternoon, with the Detroit Red Wings sitting at 1-3-0 and not yet 24 hours removed from a listless home loss to the New York Rangers, bottom six winger and penalty kill specialist Christian Fischer, made a prediction. "You go to Nashville, you get on the road, I think that'll be good for our team to just get away and play some greasy road hockey," he told The Hockey News. On Saturday afternoon, Fischer's prediction came true in Nashville, and Detroit scored a 5-2 victory over the Predators. Two late empty net goals lent the appearance of a comfortable margin, when for 58 minutes and 43 seconds, the difference between the desperate beligerents was infinitesimal.
With the two teams skating into the game with one win between them, the stakes entering Saturday's matinee were clear: for the winner, a breath of relief, while the loser had to suffer a tightening of the knot in the stomach. With the greasy formula Fischer prescribed, the Red Wings ground their way to the right side of the result, curing, if only temporarily, their early season ailments.
In the first period, Detroit stayed afloat as much because of its video staff—the crack team of L.J. Scarpace and Jeff Weintraub—as its play on the ice. Scarpace and Weintraub correctly identified that the entry that eventually produced a would-be 2-0 goal for the Predators was in fact inches offside, perhaps not even that much. After the successful challenge stemmed the tide of what could've spiraled into a Nashville rout, tenacity along the walls from Jonatan Berggren and Marco Kasper set up a goal for Vladimir Tarasenko, which left the game at 1-1 heading into the first intermission.
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It wasn't all elbow grease for the Red Wings Saturday afternoon. In the second period, Dylan Larkin gave the Red Wings their first lead of the game at the end of a beautiful piece of power play orchestration from Patrick Kane. Kane waited to create the lane for a cross-slot pass to Alex DeBrincat along the goal line. DeBrincat's one-time shot struck the post, but the diminutive winger was cool and swift in recovering the rebound and sending it across the crease, where Larkin had a wide-open net at the far post.
The end of the second and start of the third provided the clearest evidence of the game's razor-thin margin. In the final minute of the second, Detroit goaltender Alex Lyon robbed Nashville sniper Steven Stamkos at five-on-three, absorbing the newly signed Predator's signature one-time blast with the handle of his stick. In the first minute of the third, Stamkos got a second chance at a one timer on the power play, and with the do-over, he converted for his first goal in his new uniform.
On the following shift, a heavy counter-hit from Moritz Seider made clear the Red Wings weren't done grinding despite the equalizer. Within three minutes, Detroit re-took the lead with Fischer's greasy fingerprints all over the go-ahead goal. Fischer kicked a loose puck to Joe Veleno, who blindly chucked it toward the net. Before it got to its target, Andrew Copp re-directed the shot with his skate past Juuse Saros, the former high school quarterback showing a striker's deft touch with his right foot.
The Red Wings carried forward their desperation for another 15 minutes, before Simon Edvinsson struck the empty net, affording the visitors a sigh of relief with one minute and 17 seconds to play. 35 seconds later, Copp hit the empty net again, and the result was secure. It wasn't pretty, and it was closer than the final score appeared, but it was the greasy win Fischer predicted and Detroit needed, stopping a two-game skid and improving the Red Wings' record to 2-3-0.
