LOS ANGELES — The last time the Detroit Red Wings played their next opponent, Ben Chiarot drew rave reviews from teammates for how physical he was.
But as the Wings seek to nip a three-game slide headed into Tuesday’s game at the Anaheim Ducks, the message to Chiarot, in particular, is to be physical, but in a disciplined way. The Wings want him on the ice, not in the penalty box, where he has been three times the last two games. He was called for holding and boarding in Saturday’s 4-3 loss at the Kings, and for tripping in the Nov. 10 loss to the New York Rangers.
“The one push (boarding), it was man versus boy and the ref probably would want that back,” coach Derek Lalonde said after the game at Crypto.com Arena. “But the other two were holds, and it just piles up.”
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Chiarot leads the Wings with 14 penalty minutes after 15 games.
“It kind of depends sometimes on who is reffing the game,” he said. “I play a certain way, sometimes it’’ going to get called, sometimes it’s not. I’d say most of the time it doesn’t. Not much else to say about it.”
Chiarot displayed his physicality in full force in October when the Anaheim Ducks (who the Wings play Tuesday) were at Little Caesars Arena, taking out two Ducks in one shift. “He was running around and killing people,” Dominik Kubalik said at the time. “I caught myself watching. I was laughing like, oh my god, he’s going again.”
The Wings do want to see Chiarot level opponents, but not at the cost of drawing a whistle from offiicials. The Kings scored the first time Chiarot was in the box, and scored three seconds after his second penalty expired.
“We want him to play physical, he should play physical, him just being a big, physical guy, you’re going to get the odd call, which he did just winning a battle,” Lalonde said. “But those other two, it was just playing a little slow in the d-zone, unfortunately a little clutch and grab, and now instead of one or two, you’re looking at three, and it just piles up. Plus we need him out there on the kill.”
While the penalty kill got dinged, the Wings scored twice on regular power plays and again after pulling goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic for an extra attacker, pulling within a goal with two minutes to go after entering the third period trailing by three, so that area of special teams is a positive. The third period as a whole was something to build on, and the Wings should be further fortified after having Sunday off.
This is their first extended road trip of the season, and “it’s a little bit of team bonding, which we don’t have a lot,” David Perron said. “I think that’s crucial for creating chemistry with the guys and all that kind of stuff.”
Perron, Chiarot and Lalonde all used the word urgency to describe the third period.
“We started putting more pucks at the net, creating traffic,” Perron said. “Did some good stuff. That’s a positive.
“I think it’s pretty crystal clear — we know what it looks like, what it feels like, and when we don’t do it, the margin of error is pretty slim. They come out and score the first goal, that’s never a good thing. It was good to see we battled back in the third. When we play our game, it’s effective, we just have to do it from the start.”
That’s the message Lalonde has been trying to get through.
“It’s right there,” he said. “Our margin for error is not great. We are not going to outscore our mistakes. Over 60 minutes, we left too many plays out there, and it ended up unfortunately in the back of our net, but on the whole, with the process, we gave ourselves a chance. Just a little frustrating we left some plays out there.”
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 latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.