‘Not good enough’: Red Wings go winless on trip, lose 3-2 in OT to San Jose

Detroit News

This road trip ended up in weird fashion for the Red Wings on Tuesday — and a loss.

Logan Couture scored one minute into overtime for San Jose, with an octopus that a fan threw onto the ice laying by the boards, giving the Sharks a 3-2 overtime win over the Wings.

Officials also took a lengthy review of the goal, because of a possible Sharks offside, but the decision was a good goal.

“Super close, but you can’t really see the puck,” said coach Jeff Blashill of the replay on the game-winning goal. “You can think it’s offside but you have no conclusive evidence. They said it was inconclusive and I understand.”

The Wings earned one point in this game thanks to the goaltending of Alex Nedeljkovic, who stopped 37 shots. Nedeljkovic made numerous quality saves the second half of the game to keep the Wings in position to stay close.

“He got us a point, he gave us a chance to steal one for sure,” Blashill said.

The Wings (16-16-5) went 0-1-2 on the three-game California road trip, and are 3-7-2 in their last 12 games.

BOX SCORE: Sharks 3, Red Wings 2 (OT)

Only earning two of a possible six points on the trip left the Wings disappointed.

“Not good enough,” Blashill said. “We needed more points than that. It’s certainly not the trip we wanted. We wanted to come out of here and get more but we have to learn from it.”

Playing a third game in four nights, thanks to the Anaheim game being rescheduled because of the Ducks’ COVID issues, seemed to have an effect. The Sharks were the aggressor for much of the evening, and the Wings looked listless at times.

“They tilted it (the ice) on us,” Blashill said. “We came out and had good energy and were taking the game to them a little bit early. (But) a whole bunch of individual players didn’t seem to have lots of gas or energy.”

Nick Leddy gave the Wings a 2-1 lead early in the third period with his first goal as a Wing. Leddy carried the puck into the zone and lifted a shot from the dot that somehow found its way through Sharks goalie Adin Hill at 1:48.

We’re offering a great rate on digital subscriptions. Click here.

“It was the end of a shift and honestly, I just tried to get it on net,” Leddy said. “It ended up finding the net.”

But the Sharks quickly answered. Jeffrey Viel drove to the net and pushed the puck past Nedeljkovic at 3:18 as Moritz Seider was dragging Viel to the ice.

Seider, incidentally, took stitches to the side of his face in the second period when he took a puck to the side of his face. He returned to the ice late in the period.

Tyler Bertuzzi (power play) added the other Wings goal.

“We did a lot of good things,” Leddy said. “This has always been a tough place to play. They come hard. We had a real good start. There were times we sat back and those are growing moments.”

Bertuzzi scored with the Wings enjoying a two-man advantage. After a slow start to the start of the advantage, Filip Hronek delivered a shot-pass to Bertuzzi at the side of Hill, and Bertuzzi redirected the puck for his 17th goal.

The Wings were without Dylan Larkin, who suffered an upper-body injury Tuesday in Anaheim. Blashill said after the morning skate Larkin is considered day-to-day and could be available to play Thursday at home against Winnipeg.

San Jose took the first-period lead on Timo Meier’s power-play goal.

Sharks forward Jonathan Dahlen drove to the net from the flank, and slid the puck across the slot to Meier, who tapped the puck past Nedeljkovic for his 15th goal at 14:24.

ted.kulfan@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @tkulfan

Articles You May Like

Red Wings Have a Star in the Making With Lucas Raymond
SSOTD: Predators vs. Red Wings, 3/23/2024
Red Wings’ Coaching Comes Into Question During Playoff Push
Islanders & Red Wings Already Regretting Trade Deadline Silence
Grading Steve Yzerman’s Free Agent Signings as Red Wings GM

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *