Yes. Yes. Thank you: please hold your applause. Yes, I'm back from vacation, and yes, that means I get to continue the honor of reviewing every...single...Red Wings...game....
Anyway, the Red Wings enter the week following a 1-2 Week 6 on the road. The two losses were a 6-4 loss to the Anaheim Ducks and a 4-1 loss to the LA Kings. The win was a 3-2 win in overtime over the Pittsburgh Penguins. So yeah, it was not a good week for the Flying Wheel team.
Also, as much as many Red Wings fans would have liked to see it happen, Derek Lalonde was not removed from his position as head coach this week, either.
The Red Wings struggle against beatable competition to go .500 for the week
Nov. 18, 2024
Game 18
Red Wings @ Sharks
4-5 Sharks OT Win
SOG: 20-34 Sharks
Starting Goaltenders: Cam Talbot vs Mackenzie Blackwood
Lineup and starters at the Shark Tank. #LGRW pic.twitter.com/m5MyBa0lXl
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) November 19, 2024
After two abysmal games, the Red Wings looked to complete their California road trip with a win against the rebuilding, bottom-three San Jose Sharks. While this wasn't a must-win game regarding standings, it was easily a must-win game regarding team and fan vibes.
The first period started like all Red Wings games seem to this season. Lifeless and disinterested. Thankfully, it is still just the Sharks, so after a lot of nothing, Dylan Larkin (11) scored with a beautiful backhand after being left alone in front of the net, assisted by Simon Edvinsson (5). The Red Wings seemed to get some pep back in their step after that goal. That was until Jeff Petry decided that Zetterlund needed a hug and was sent to the bad boy box for holding. Unfortunately, the league's worst penalty kill proved why it's the league's worst when William Eklund got one past Talbot with a deflection to make it 1-1. The two teams battled back and forth in a battle of the super mid offenses. Thankfully, the Sharks would forget how to count and get a penalty for having too many men on the ice, putting the Red Wings on the powerplay. With 53 seconds left, Marco Kasper (2) would score from Gustafsson (3) and Tarasenko (5) to give the Red Wings a 2-1 lead, which they would hold going into the second period.
The second period was more of the same. A super mid offense taking on a rebuilding team's offense. There was a total of 3 shots on both nets before William Eklund would score his second of the same 14 minutes into the period on a very rare Cam Talbot soft goal. This lit the Sharks on fire, who would proceed to dominate the Red Wings for nearly two minutes before the Red Wings would get control again and get it to the Shark's zone, where Michael Rasmussen (3) would get lucky on a poke-check in front of Blackwood to make it 3-2 for the Red Wings. Unfortunately, that still didn't seem to make the Red Wings care too much more because the Sharks would continue to absolutely run their show for the next five minutes, with the Red Wings getting minimum offensive chances. This would come back to bite them in the butt when a massive lapse in communication and blown coverage allowed Tyler Toffoli to be wide open in front of Talbot, who didn't stand a chance against the shot, scored to tie the game at 3-3 with less than a minute left in the period.
The third period...happened. The Red Wings started out with 0 sense of urgency and let the Sharks run their show for most of the period, with the Red Wings once again getting minimal offensive chances. Luke Kunin would score directly off a faceoff in the Red Wings zone with another soft goal let in by Talbot, giving the Sharks the 4-3 lead with over half the period remaining. But as is consistent with the Red Wings this season. There was 0 sense of urgency for the Red Wings to score after going down on the scoreboard. The Red Wings would do nothing to come back, letting the Sharks absolutely dominate them the entire period. In fact, the Red Wings only got 3 shots in total on net in the 3rd period. Fortunately for the Red Wings, one of them came on a late powerplay from Alex Debrincat (8) to Tie it up at 4-4 with just over 2 minutes left in the period, assisted by Lucas Raymond (15) and Dylan Larkin (4). This score would hold for the rest of the period, and we would go to overtime.
46 seconds. It took 46 seconds for Macklin Celebrini to walk in and place the perfect shot past Talbot to win it in OT.
This was a pathetic display from the Red Wings. If the blown 3-1 lead to the Ducks to start the California trip wasn't bad enough, this was certainly enough for many fans to just completely give up on the season. While I haven't because I'm apparently a masochist, I can't blame others for giving up. This team has shown nothing of what they did last season, the grit, the scoring, the energy, all of it. It's all just gone, and it makes this team incredibly hard to watch at times.