Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Red Wings look to rebound at home against Lightning

Stats, LLC via FOX Sports

DETROIT -- The Tampa Bay Lightning are coming off a big win while the Detroit Red Wings will be trying to rebound from their biggest and most embarrassing loss of the season.

The Lightning (9-6-1) visit the Red Wings (8-7-1) at Joe Louis Arena in a 7:30 p.m. game on Tuesday.

Tampa Bay shut out the New York Islanders 4-0 in Brooklyn on Monday night. Detroit, however, suffered a 5-0 drubbing at the hands of the Canadiens in Montreal on Saturday night.

Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 34 saves, including 20 in the third period, for the Lightning.

"We sat back probably a little too much in the third and put (Vasilevskiy) in a tough position to make some big saves and earn that shutout," Tampa Bay captain Steve Stamkos said. "But the first two periods were pretty good."

Stamkos had two assists, Nikita Kucherov a goal and an assist and J.T. Brown, Ryan Callahan and Vladislav Namestnikov also scored for the Lightning.

Despite his heavy work load in the third period, Vasilevskiy appreciated the way his team played in front of him.

"They did a good job on the (penalty kill). We blocked shots and made good plays," he said. "I just want to say thank you to our guys and thank you for the shutout."

Meanwhile, Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill told www.mlive.com that his team got "slapped in the face in the 5-0 loss at Montreal Saturday."

The game exposed Detroit's inability to win puck battles. So, one-on-one drills were the focus of Monday's practice at Joe Louis Arena.

"Every guy in this room can be a little better and it starts with one-on-one battles," center Luke Glendening said. "You've got to be better than the guy across from you.

"It's in the offensive zone, it's in the defensive zone, it's at our net, at their net, face-offs."

The Red Wings will obviously have to be better to be competitive against the Lightning, who have eliminated Detroit in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs the past two seasons.

"We talked about identity and being relentless and being fast and being competitive," Blashill said. "You can't win in this league if you're not highly competitive and I thought in Montreal we got out-competed."

Winning more puck battles will lead to improvement in the Red Wings breakouts and forechecking, which have both been lacking at times this season.

"All of us take our jobs very seriously and are very professional about it," Justin Abdelkader said. "Today was a good day for us to come back and get to work and focus on some of the things that we need to get better at. It is a long season, but at the same time you don't want to be as streaky as we've been. We want to try to be a little more consistent."

Ben Bishop will likely get the start in goal for Tampa Bay and, after Jimmy Howard started four consecutive games, look for Petr Mrazek to be the starter for Detroit.

No comments:

Post a Comment