The Detroit Red Wings were booed on home ice, deservedly so as not even a date at Little Caesars Arena against an opponent near the bottom of the standings ignited a good performance.
Jakub Vrana’s season debut was lost in the ugliness that was Tuesday’s game against the Arizona Coyotes. Neither Alex Nedeljkovic nor Thomas Greiss played well, but there were numerous defensive breakdowns, and for a third straight game there was no offense. It added up to the Wings’ most lopsided loss of the season, 9-2.
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It’s the 10th time this season the Wings (24-27-6) have allowed six or more goals in regulation and comes less than two weeks after the Wings were embarrassed in a 10-7 loss at home to the Maple Leafs.
Vrana, out since training camp with a shoulder injury, scored on a power play with three minutes to go in the second period. Robby Fabbri also converted on a power play.
But the uglier numbers overwhelmed: Nick Leddy was minus-4, dropping his season total to minus-32. Gustav Lindstrom was minus-6. Nedeljkovic gave up four goals on the first 12 shots, and another three on the last 15.
The Coyotes even played with a short bench for the majority of the game, as Phil Kessel left the game in the first period to return to Arizona for the birth of his child. The Wings already were down, 3-1, when that period ended, and Nick Schmaltz dinged them a minute into the second period. That’s when Greiss replaced Nedeljkovic, but when Jakob Chychrun and J.J. Moser scored on three shots in 3:45, the Wings went back to Nedeljkovic. He gave up a second goal to Schmaltz with a minute to go in the second period. It got to the point fans cheered derisively when Nedeljkovic made a save.
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Fabbri’s streak
Fabbri scored to make it 1-1 for the third straight game, building on his second-period goal against the Lightning and first-period goal at the Panthers. Fabbri was hustling in front of the net as a penalty to Travis Boyd ticked down, Fabbri popped the puck behind Karel Vejmelka to reach 17 goals on the season. That’s one short of the career-high 18 Fabbri scored as a rookie in 2015-16.
Falling behind
Fabbri scored five minutes after Boyd took advantage of Leddy’s stationary defense to win a puck battle down low. Nick Ritchie put the Coyotes up by a goal at 8:15, putting the finishing touch on some fabulous work by Barrett Hayton. The No. 5 pick in 2018 (one spot before the Wings took Filip Zadina) cycled the puck around Detroit’s zone and behind the net before dishing it to Ritchie at the other post.
Chychrun doubles up
Chychrun put the Coyotes up 3-1 with 6:41 left in the first period. Loui Eriksson had the puck behind the net and sent it out front to Hayton, who put the puck on net. It lay loose in the paint, and Chychrun dove to poke it across the goal line before Gustav Lindstrom could get there. Chychrun scored again two minutes into the second period and assisted on Christian Fischer’s goal in the third period.
The Coyotes grabbed Chychrun at No. 16 in 2016 with the pick they got from the Wings for taking on Pavel Datsyuk’s contract after he quit with a year to go on his deal. The Wings got Arizona’s pick at No. 20 and took Dennis Cholowski, who was deemed expendable in last year’s expansion draft. At least the Wings also got Arizona’s pick at No. 53, which they used to draft Filip Hronek. (The Wings weren’t the only ones to pick and miss — Olli Juolevi, claimed off waivers earlier this week, went No. 5 in that draft).
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her book, The Big 50: The Detroit Red Wings is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.