The Detroit Red Wings are seeking ways to generate more offense without sacrificing defense.
Through seven games, the Red Wings are averaging 1.86 goals, third from the bottom in the NHL. It is even worse than 2019-20, when they scored 2.00 goals per game, their lowest output since 1939-40 (1.88).
Missing three top-nine forwards the past three games due to COVID protocol (Robby Fabbri, Filip Zadina, Sam Gagner) has contributed to the decline. They will remain out Thursday when the Red Wings face Dallas in the second game of a back-to-back set at American Airlines Center (8:30 p.m., Fox Sports Detroit Plus), and possibly longer.
Until then, and even after the team returns to a full complement of players, the Red Wings need more goals.
“How do we score more? Either guys burying their chances, or we have to do a better job scoring the dirty-type goals with chaos at the net,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “(Dallas) is not an easy team to find our offense against. They’re extremely good defensively. They’ve got a couple elite defensemen (Miro Heiskanen, John Klingberg) and a really big D corps and they play well structurally.”
Whatever they do, Blashill said it is vital they play the kind of tight-checking game they did in Tuesday’s 2-1 overtime loss to the Stars.
“If we can be in a lot of games that are 1-1 late in the game, it’s a good spot for us,” Blashill said. “We got to find a way to win those. You win them with making a play on the power play when you get those opportunities. You win them by making a critical play at a critical moment. But we want to be in as many of those tight games in the third period as we can. To do that we got to make sure our defense is great.
“(Henrik) Zetterberg used to say this a lot, you got to be OK with nothing happening on a shift. You can’t force things. You have to attack when the opponent is vulnerable. If you force it, generally bad things happen. I thought we showed maturity (Tuesday) in just laying pucks behind them and being OK with that.”
The path to more offense leads through the power play, where Detroit has converted only 3-of-20 opportunities (15 percent), two in the same game by Tyler Bertuzzi. Fabbri, Zadina and Gagner are regulars on the power play.
“Just more puck execution so we stay in the zone longer, that would be No. 1 by a country mile,” Blashill said. “Lots of times we’ve given the puck away, not really trying to make plays, just poor puck management, both on our entries and in the zone, so then you’re not in the zone long enough. The more you’re in the zone, the more tired the (penalty killers) get and the less they think clearly.”
Blashill said they must find ways to get the puck to Bobby Ryan down low, which could create more one-time opportunities for Anthony Mantha and Filip Hronek at the flanks.
“Our execution still needs to be way better, and a number of players still need to be way better,” Blashill said. “While it was good we were better defensively, I still think there’s way more from more people.”
Mantha played better Tuesday after being benched most of the third period in Sunday’s loss at Chicago. But he has only one goal and three points in seven games.
The team was glad to see Vladislav Namestnikov record his first goal on Tuesday. They hope Mathias Brome (no points in seven games) breaks through soon.
Larkin misses practice
Blashill said Dylan Larkin did not practice Wednesday in Dallas and that it is not due to COVID protocol. He missed a couple of shifts in the second period Tuesday after getting banged up.
“I don’t think it’s going to be anything that’s going to force him to miss the game, but we’ll see,” Blashill said.
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