Red Wings: Detroit’s powerless power play translating to losses

It’s hard to win games when you can’t score. I know, thanks, Captain Obvious, I get it. When the Detroit Red Wings were ripping off wins early on in the season, a lot was due to the fact their power play had been converting at a near 50% clip (12-29). Although that type of conversion rate wouldn’t be sustainable, they’ve completely fallen off with the man advantage.

The Detroit Red Wings power play has gone ice cold, as has Detroit’s overall offense. Detroit’s power play is now 0 for its last 13 opportunities. The last time they scored a power-play goal was back on October 24th, when they scored three times with the man advantage in the third period to roar back, only to lose in overtime thanks to a Jordan Eberle goal. Since then, Detroit has been snakebitten with the man advantage, and if things don’t change, expect the losses to continue to mount.

Following Detroit’s loss to the Bruins in Boston, Detroit Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde expressed his displeasure with Detroit’s effort on the power play. Lalonde mentioned that when things were going well to begin the year, the team drew energy from the Red Wings’ power play opportunities, even if they didn’t score. When they failed to score, Detroit had been creating chances that energized the bench. In that Boston game, in particular, the Red Wings produced one scoring chance while on the power play to the Bruins nine (in roughly the same amount of time). Brutal. Detroit was able to muster their way to the win column despite seeing no success on the power play with a strong third period in New York and eventually defeated the Islanders in overtime.

Red Wings power play continues to struggle in Thursday’s loss to the Florida Panthers.

On Thursday night, the Detroit Red Wings lost 2-0 to the Florida Panthers and, like in Boston, struggled to create many chances. The Red Wings did hit a couple of goal-posts. Michael Rasmussen had a wide open net just a couple of feet out and rang the pipe. When it’s going bad, it’s bad, and right now, things are not going Detroit’s way. The Red Wings only generated 22 shots Thursday night at home, leaving James Reimer to shoulder the load. The lone goal allowed by the backup netminder was a fluke. It was a harmless shot from Steven Lorentz, which hit the palm of Reimer’s glove, bounced behind him, hit the crossbar, and fell into the net.

Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky made 22 saves for his 39th career shutout. It’s also the tenth consecutive win for the Panthers over Detroit.

It may be time for Lalonde to experiment some on the power play. Maybe assign the 6-foot-6 forward Rasmussen as the net-front presence on the first unit instead of David Perron. Also, it might be time to see more of Joe Veleno, who has had a hot hand of late, on the second unit, perhaps playing with Perron, J.T. Compher, Daniel Sprong, and Jake Walman.