DETROIT — Here’s how good things have gotten for the Detroit Red Wings over the last two weeks: their biggest challenge Sunday was how they would be able to handle a 4-0 lead in the game’s first eight minutes.
The Red Wings ambushed the Seattle Kraken in an afternoon game at Little Caesars Arena, scoring their first goal just 3:22 into the game on a Marco Kasper redirection, and from there the floodgates were open. J.T. Compher added another goal 11 seconds later. Then Alex DeBrincat on the power play. And then Patrick Kane. They chased Kraken starter Philipp Grubauer and were clearly in the driver’s seat with nearly the whole game left to play.
“You don’t want to take your foot off the gas,” Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin said. “I think we’ve struggled with leads, and tonight was a great challenge. … We scored four early and then we’ve gotta play, we’ve gotta play a lot of hockey left, and we answered it.”
The 6-2 win over Seattle was the Red Wings’ seventh straight, which is their longest win streak since January 2012. Vibes are high in Detroit. And with a game against the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday, that streak has a serious chance to continue.
Some thoughts:
1. Whether the Red Wings can keep this streak going hinges on Detroit’s ability to handle this early success under new coach Todd McLellan. And in that way, Sunday’s test of protecting that quick lead was a useful microcosm. They can’t let off the gas.
There’s no doubt things are going well since the Red Wings’ coaching change. McLellan’s Day 1 edict to play harder, faster and smarter has come to fruition, which has revived a season that only three weeks ago seemed doomed.
That took buy-in from Detroit’s players initially — but perhaps more importantly, the fact they’re winning creates even more buy-in now.
“Right now, we’ve been able to have some success,” McLellan said. “And the nuggets that we try to give the players, because they’ve had success with them, they’re kind of waiting for more now. Like, ‘what else do you have for us?’”
Soon after McLellan said that, though, he lamented that Monday was a mandatory off day for Detroit’s players — because he really would have liked the added practice time after the unusual way Sunday’s game played out.
“You have a (4-0) lead really quick, and then it gets loose, some things aren’t really important, and you have a tendency maybe to give something back,” McLellan said. “In an ideal world, it’d be nice to have a practice tomorrow, but we don’t. So we’ll see how the group responds to that test.”
2. A game like this is notoriously hard to evaluate for just the reasons McLellan outlined. It’s human nature to loosen up a bit when the score is as lopsided as it was, with Detroit scoring six goals before allowing one. That’s how you end up with Seattle outshooting the Red Wings 33-23 by game’s end.
But it stood out that Detroit was able to get a couple of quick goals with traffic in the slot and at the crease — areas they’ve needed to be better in all year. Joe Veleno got a rebound goal in the same area against Ottawa last week, and the more the Red Wings are able to produce in those hard areas, the better off they’ll be.
Those are the kind of goals they need to be able to score when the power play eventually slows down from the scorching heater it’s on right now, so it’s encouraging to see that starting to happen. The Red Wings also had three different lines score an even-strength goal Sunday, with the big highlight being Kane’s tally to finish a remarkable play set up by Andrew Copp and Erik Gustafsson.
KANE FROM GUSTAFSSON 🚨
4-0. WHAT A START IN HOCKEYTOWN! #LGRW pic.twitter.com/IrjNfApH9s
— Ryan Hana (@RyanHanaWWP) January 12, 2025
Were the Red Wings perfect Sunday? No. But considering the circumstances, I thought they showed some good elements while playing with the lead early, and at a minimum never let Seattle back into the game.
Readers will surely recall that last season, they let a 4-0 lead in the second period turn into a 6-5 overtime loss to San Jose. This time, the result never felt in doubt.
3. Even if the power play can’t sustain the 50 percent clip it’s converting at since Christmas, it really is something to behold right now. Detroit added three more power play goals Sunday.
“It feels confident,” McLellan said. “It’s not the same look all the time. The pieces are interchangeable. It makes it hard to prepare to defend it.”
Kane and Lucas Raymond tend to really run Detroit’s top power play from the flanks, and Larkin made a great point about how the league’s top scorers tend to “get that puck on the power play and they make it count when they have it, and I see (Raymond) doing that.”
There’s no doubt about that, and with two more assists Sunday, Raymond is now on pace for 90 points this season. He’s having a remarkable season.
But one thing that shouldn’t go unnoticed is how natural Moritz Seider has looked up on that top unit, even if he’s not the primary playmaker of the group. He’s been a perfect safety valve for Raymond and Kane, providing an outlet and then getting it back into their hands. He had two assists of his own Sunday doing just that.
4. It once seemed like Erik Gustafsson was being brought in to run that unit, taking over for Shayne Gostisbehere last year, but it’s hard to argue with the results Seider’s getting on what is now the NHL’s No. 2 power play (28.6 percent).
But it is worth noting Gustafsson had a power-play goal of his own on Sunday and looks like a totally different player right now. He had a highlight-reel play against Chicago earlier this weekend and between the goal and his pass to set up Kane Sunday, he certainly appears to have found some confidence again.
“We were just talking about him in the coaches’ room,” McLellan said. “He’s been outstanding, really. The knock on him will always be, ‘Well, can he defend?’ He’s doing an outstanding job of that. He’s bought into taking care of that first. And when you do that, it kind of opens up the other end as well: vision, running a power play, offensive confidence. All those things are coming out now, and I think that’s the player that the club was looking for when they signed him.
“And maybe more importantly, that’s the player that Gus knows he is, and it’s finally coming out.”
Erik Gustafsson celebrates his power-play goal against the Kraken. (Nick Wosika / Imagn Images)
One reason McLellan was willing to put Albert Johansson right into the top four with Simon Edvinsson when Jeff Petry went down was how happy the team was with how the other pairs (Seider/Ben Chiarot and Gustafsson/Justin Holl) were performing.
He talked Sunday about how that’s also allowed the staff to not have to chase matchups so much, which Detroit was unquestionably doing previously — usually loading up Seider and Edvinsson. But the line that stuck with me was this: “When everybody’s playing well we can balance it all out, and everybody feels important.”
It’s just a hunch, but I bet that last piece is a big part of the Red Wings playing as well as they have.
5. Marco Kasper had his second straight multi-point game Sunday, and scored again after getting an empty-netter in the Chicago game.
For a young player especially, seeing those pucks go in has to be huge for Kasper, and it’s huge for Detroit that he’s bringing pace and some hard-nosed elements to their top line.
I’m sure there’s some pressure that comes with playing with his team’s two best forwards, but if Kasper can continue to rise to that challenge, it would be a huge deal for keeping their lineup balanced — and for Kasper’s own offensive development.
“All he has to do is look down and say, ‘Dylan Larkin and (Raymond) were in the exact same situation just a few years ago, and they handled it well and look where they are now,’” McLellan said Saturday. “When you end up in that situation, you almost have to give yourself permission to play with them; make your own plays and react around them a little bit. Don’t get hesitant.”
If he can keep doing that, then just like the Red Wings, he can continue to build on this recent success.
(Top photo of Dylan Larkin’s goal: Nick Wosika / Imagn Images)
