Red Wings Fall to Blue Jackets in High-Scoring Shootout to Begin road Trip
COLUMBUS, OH – The Detroit Red Wings began their season-long six-game road trip with a 6-5 shootout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Thursday night. A back-and-forth Eastern Conference contest ultimately saw the red Wings secure just one point despite a strong offensive showing.
“I feel like the last couple years of these games, they’ve always been kind of crazy games,” said James van Riemsdyk. “I liked the way we stuck with it…Usually, when you’re leading at the end of the game like that, you’d like to try to find a way to get the two points but I thought we played resilient and stuck with the process even if things didn’t go our way. I liked that part of our game.”
Cam Talbot made 25 saves in net for Detroit (14-11-3; 31 points). The Red Wings scored three power-play goals in a single game for the first time this season, but were undone by special teams struggles at othre times. Columbus netminder Elvis Merzlikins stopped 28 shots for the Blue Jackets (13-9-5; 31 points).
Ivan provorov opened the scoring for Columbus late in the first period, snapping a shot past a screened Talbot at 17:55 to give the Blue Jackets a 1-0 lead.
The second period exploded with action, as the two teams combined for six goals, including five scored on the power play.
“We got our power-play opportunities and capitalized on the power play,” Patrick Kane explained. “Three goals on the power play tonight, that’s kind of what we expect from that group…The ultimate equalizer, if you can be good on special teams. We had a good night on the power play but gave up a couple on the penalty kill and 6-on-5, so it’s kind of what the game comes down to sometimes.”
Detroit captain Dylan Larkin tied the game at 1-1 just 1:09 into the second period, redirecting a Moritz Seider shot from between the face-off circles. Seider’s assist marked his 200th career NHL point, and Lucas Raymond extended his point streak to seven consecutive games with a secondary helper.
Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan noted the similarities to a recent game between the two teams. “It kind of reminds me of the game that we played in Detroit a couple weeks ago against them — we fell behind, had to come back, got to overtime and in that case we got the shot off that we needed. Tonight,we didn’t and it comes down to a crapshoot in a shootout.”
