Detroit Red Wings struggle to find offense in devastating Week 9

Dec. 5, 2024
Red Wings @ Senators
1-2 Senators Win
SOG: 20-32 Bruins

Starting Goaltenders: Ville Husso vs Linus Ullmark

The Red Wings wrap up their two-game road trip with another Atlantic Division matchup against one of their primary rivals of the last five years. Granted, that's been a massive battle of pure mid, but it's a rivalry nonetheless. Johansson would get the nod over Gustafsson in this game, and Husso would get his 2nd straight start. Patrick Kane will be activated from IR and returned to the lineup.

The first period started, and you could instantly tell that both of these teams were not just mid but also super mid. Neither team got very many quality scoring chances or could even hold the puck for a consistent amount of time. Unfortunately, the Red Wings took only one minute and forty seconds to take a penalty. Fortunately, the Red Wings PK would come up big, which would be a theme for this game. For the next roughly 10 minutes, both teams would exchange giveaways, takeaways, and hits. Nothing significant happened until Josh Norris capitalized on the rare occurrence of both Seider and Edvinsson being out of position and buried his rebound to give the Senators a 1-0 lead. The rest of the period would be the same as it started. The score would remain 1-0 going into the second period.

I hate this so much. Nothing happened in the slightest in this period—nothing but the same thing, in the same period, in a different game. There are plenty of giveaways, takeaways, hits, and so many missed shots. Nobody would score, and the Senators would enter the third period with a 1-0 lead.

The Third period was a bit more entertaining but still not very fun. The Red Wings would press the Senators pretty hard to get a goal but would ultimately lead to a fairly weak embellishment call on the Seider, which would turn into a 4-on-4, which would turn into a 4-on-3 in favor of the Red Wings. Thankfully, Alex Debrincat (11) would score a one-time shot against his former team after a beautiful
tik-tak-toe play from Vladimir Tarasenko (8) and J.T. Compher (7) to tie the game at 1-1. Both teams would press to get the lead before the end of the period to prevent a 3-point divisional game. With 43 seconds left. you guessed it, Josh Norris would score his second of the game to put the Senators up 2-1 to win the game.

This was an important game for a few reasons. The main one is that the Red Wings and Senators are directly competing for a playoff spot and divisional standing. This was supposed to be a year where both teams take another step in their rebuilds and compete and maybe even make the playoffs for the first time in a long time. While the PK was perfect, the Red Wing's inability to score outside of their top 3 players once again bit them in the butt this game.