Detroit Red Wings pummeled by Ottawa Senators two nights in a row

The Detroit Red Wings were pummeled for the second time in two nights by the Ottawa Senators. The term must-win is often overused, but Tuesday night in Ottawa felt like a must-win situation for the Detroit Red Wings. With Friday’s trade deadline looming, Detroit needed to prove to their general manager they deserve to be buyers (cautiously) or, at the very least, stand pat leading up to the deadline. They didn’t.

Back-to-back losses to the Ottawa Senators, who are basically in the same situation as the Red Wings on Monday and Tuesday, but trending in the opposite direction, likely signals Detroit will become sellers.

Things started out well for the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday. Dominik Kubalik opened the scoring, netting his 17th goal of the season as the Senators were caught on a poor line change. Kubalik received a long pass from Olli Maatta, broke in on the left wing, and beat goaltender Mads Sogaard to the glove side.

The Senators tied the game 18 seconds later, thanks to a Tim Stutzle penalty shot goal. Filip Hronek has performed poorly of late but defended Stutzle’s initial breakaway exceptionally well, but the officials did not see it that way. The video is below; you be the judge.

There was an entirely different officiating crew in Ottawa on Tuesday, but you’d never know it. These last two games have been some of the worst officiated games this season, maybe ever. Not even just towards Detroit, although it feels like they’ve gotten the worst end of the stick, Ottawa had been questionably penalized as well.

The Ottawa Senators pummeled the Detroit Red Wings for the second straight night.

Following the Stutzle goal, the Senators began to pile on. Austin Watson scored two in a row, the first on a breakaway while short-handed. Hronek left the puck behind blindly just outside Detroit’s blue line, as many teams do on the power play, but it was Watson who gathered it and beat Husso with a beautiful move. Watson would strike again about eight minutes later, burying a cross-ice pass from Derek Brassard. Watson caught a high stick from David Perron and was bleeding quite a bit. Perron was assessed a four-minute penalty on the play, which was lowered to two minutes due to the goal. On that power play, Alex DeBrincat scored his 20th goal of the season to put the Senators up 4-1, and that is how the first period would conclude.

The second period wasn’t nearly as eventful, and that’s probably a good thing the way these last two games have been going.

Dylan Larkin leveled Brady Tkachuk very late after he made a pass. Tkachuk had the wind knocked out of him, and Larkin was penalized for interference. Claude Giroux scored his 25th goal of the season on the power play, making it 5-1 Ottawa. Following the goal, Tkachuk did a flyby of the penalty box where Larkin hung his head and had a plethora of things to say to Detroit’s captain, all of which we can not write here. The Senators scored five goals on 19 shots through two periods. The Detroit Red Wings were 0-5 on the power play through two periods and only recorded 11 shots on goal, with no real quality scoring chances.

The Detroit Red Wings lost Filip Hronek to injury early on in the second period to an upper-body injury. Hronek absorbed a reasonably heavy hit from Austin Watson and immediately grimaced in pain. Hronek came out for one more quick shift following the hit; as he made an up-ice pass, he fell, went right to the bench, and would not return.

The Senators continued to pile on in the third period. After what felt like a lifetime of possession in the offensive zone during five-on-five play, mind you, Claude Giroux ripped a slap shot that would be tipped in front by Brady Tkachuk past Husso to make it 6-1 Senators.

That’s how this one finished, 6-1 Senators. Ottawa outshot the Detroit Red Wings to the tune of 27-17. Bertuzzi dropped the gloves in the first period with Artem Zub, and Moritz Seider had a squirmish with Mathieu Joseph late in the third period; in between, a lot of penalties and a lot of Ottawa goals. Detroit went an abysmal 0-8 on the power play, while Ottawa went 2-6.

Next on the docket for Red Wings is a date with the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night in Detroit.