The Red Wings went into Tuesday night’s game with some new faces. Just a day after the NHL’s trading deadline, newcomers Oskar Sundqvist and Jake Walman suited up and both made an impact. Detroit was hosting a familiar foe in the Philadelphia Flyers, who were also looking a lot different without franchise player Claude Giroux, who was shipped off to Florida before the deadline.
It’s hard to complain with the way the Red Wings started the game. Filip Zadina started out on the top line with Raymond and Larkin. I think that line looked good, but I couldn’t stop noticing Joe Veleno’s line. JV opened the scoring thanks to a heads-up play by Givani Smith. The star of the goal is Rasmus Ristolainen, who took his goalie out of the play:
There was a brief moment of panic in the first period after Dylan Larkin took a nasty spill and landed either flat on his back or on his hip. He went down the tunnel in some visible discomfort, but would eventually return to the bench. At about the halfway point of the first period, Detroit doubled their lead with Jakub Vrana scoring his fourth goal in a very short season:
The second period came with some major challenges for Detroit, but not before Lucas Raymond picked up his 20th goal of the season to give his team a 3-0 lead. It was a great shot from Raymond, but the entire play was made possible by Dylan Larkin. Great skating, great vision, great pass:
The middle part of the second period got real ugly for Detroit. The Philadelphia Flyers capitalized on a couple of sloppy plays, one of which came from Moritz Seider. Though, to his credit, he made the play but it was just a step further than Lucas Raymond. That caused an ugly three-on-none attack for Philly. No chance for Alex Nedeljkovic. After losing a three-goal lead, the Red Wings managed to make up some ground with a late goal from Jakub Vrana. Again, Dylan Larkin made an incredible play, just like the Raymond goal. Vrana is going to score this goal almost every time:
The third period was the most physical of the entire game. The Flyers opened the scoring which I think put the entire Red Wings fanbase in the “not this old bit again” mood. The Red Wings would go on to add two empty-net goals, but the real highlight of the final 20 minutes was Moritz Seider putting the body on some poor random:
Lots to Love
You probably don’t like some of the goals Philadelphia scored. I’d argue that it should have been one-sided rout to begin with, but nevertheless, the positives outweighed the negatives. What looked real good were the two newest faces to the Red Wings. Jake Walman played a cool and calm game with some chances and Oskar Sundqvist plays a chunky game that will really help this bottom six (not to mention he picked up two points on both empty-net goals). I also really liked what I saw from Joe Veleno. His line was grinding all game long. It made a difference.
The Wings look ahead to a road-trip to play the New York Islanders. Puck drop for that game is around 7:30pm on Bally Plus.