Red Wings Lose 2-1: Filip Zadina Notches First Goal

Red Wings fans could rest easy–Anthony Mantha was back in the lineup and the bizarre 48 hours of debate as to whether he should have been a healthy scratch was quieted–for now.

As for the exact reason why he was scratched in the first place, head coach Jeff Blashill had this to say (starts right at the beginning)

So bend the knees and skate hard, young man, and apparently you won’t miss time.

Onto the game.

Filip Zadina scored a nifty goal to give the Red Wings a 1-0 lead.

Florida answered with two goals after this, the second being on the power play–stop me if you haven’t heard that before. Meanwhile, it continued the Panthers’ dominance of the Red Wings on the man advantage.

Speaking of power plays—guess who couldn’t capitalize on two opportunities in the third period? At this point, the Red Wings power play is beyond pathetic, and something has to change–namely assigning it to someone who actually has a better plan than standing around, passing it a few times, and then firing into an opposing player.

The game felt like the Red Wings were skating around with concrete in their skates. The first five minutes felt like Detroit actually had a little jump but from there it was a slow moving game. The Red Wings actually outshot Florida 32-22, but it felt like a heck of a lot less than 32. With under a minute, the Red Wings sustained some pressure but it was for naught.

Here’s Dylan Larkin postgame:

A final thought:

I couldn’t say this any better.

It was good to see the skilled players out there under a minute left in the game, but it’s not enough. There are times it just feels like either scripted deployment or Blashill is just going to stubbornly put those veterans out there because it’s his safe choice. At this point, there are no safe choices when this team cannot score goals consistently or get anything going on a power play.

Worse, Givani Smith had the least amount of ice time of all forwards (10:07), behind Darren Helm (13:27), Adam Erne (12:52), and Frans Nielsen (11:25).

But keep sending Nielsen and Erne out there in crunch time while benching Mantha for not skating hard enough.

Detroit is now 3-9-2 on the season. They take on Nashville Thursday.