The Detroit Red Wings came out with the first punch in St. Louis, but the finish belonged to the Blues.
Detroit opened the scoring Tuesday night at Enterprise Center, yet the lead vanished almost immediately after the second period began. St. Louis answered quickly and rode that momentum to a 3-2 win, handing the Red Wings their fourth straight loss.
It also pushed Detroit to 7-9-3 on the season and left the club with five losses in its last six games. John Gibson stopped 30 shots, while Andrew Copp and Moritz Seider scored for the Wings.
The road doesn’t get any easier from here. Detroit heads to Florida next, with a matchup against the Panthers on Thursday followed by a visit to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday.
The lineup had a few familiar faces back in it. Marco Kasper and Mason Appleton returned after injury absences, and the forward combinations included Emmitt Finnie with Alex DeBrincat and Viktor Arvidsson, Andrew Copp with Michael Brandsegg-Nygard and Lucas Raymond, Kasper between Michael Rasmussen and J.T. Compher, and Sheldon Dries with Appleton and Keegan Kolesar.
Gibson was back in the crease after leaving Nov. 3 with a lower-body injury, and he looked sharp early. Detroit finally broke through with 12.3 seconds left in the first period when Ben Chiarot put a shot on goal and Copp got a deflection for the game’s opening tally.
But the Blues flipped it fast. Pius Suter scored 37 seconds into the second period for his fifth goal of the season, and Justin Barron made it 2-1 a minute and a half later.
Detroit kept battling, but the comeback came up short. The Wings got a goal from Moritz Seider, yet it wasn’t enough to erase the damage from that quick St. Louis burst.
In Other News...
Red Wings Still Have One Roster Problem They Need To Solve
The Red Wings keep running into the same issue in the lower half of their forward group: the bottom-six has not given them enough scoring punch, and that has shown up in the teams overall offensive consistency. Over the past few seasons, Detroit has cycled through different players in those spots, but the production has lagged well behind what the club gets from its top scorers, leaving a roster hole that has lingered longer than the front office would like.
There are a few ways the Wings could address it, starting with a call-up from the AHL if they want to inject some energy and skill into the lineup. The return of injured forwards Marco Kasper and Mason Appleton should help, and the trade market remains another avenue if Detroit decides the answer has to come from outside the organization. For now, the question is less about whether the problem exists and more about which fix the team chooses first. [Read more 🡒]
Red Wings And Dylan Larkin Are Now Locked In An Ugly Standoff
Dylan Larkins standoff with the Red Wings has moved well beyond a routine trade request. After asking out of Detroit and then refusing to play, the captain has been suspended without pay, while the organization has responded by taking down his banners and pulling his merchandise from circulation. For a franchise that has spent years trying to build around Larkin, the split is now public, messy and unmistakably personal.
The part that makes this situation especially tense is how little movement there has been on either side. Larkin has held firm on the destinations he would accept, even as interest around the league has started to surface, with the Blues among the teams reportedly keeping tabs. Detroit appears ready to move on, but until the trade list changes or another team meets the price, the Red Wings are stuck in a standoff that shows no sign of easing. [Read more 🡒]
Red Wings Get A Chance To Change Everything In St. Louis
The Red Wings head into the second stop of their four-game road trip looking for a reset against a Blues team that has also been trying to stop the bleeding. Detroit has been dealing with its own rough stretch, and the timing of this matchup offers a chance to steady things early in the trip. John Gibson is set to get the start in goal, while St. Louis will counter with Joel Hofer.
Detroit also gets a small boost in the lineup with Mason Appleton and Marco Kasper activated from the injured list for tonights game. Their return gives the Red Wings a little more flexibility as they try to snap out of their recent skid and make this trip feel a lot less like survival mode. The question now is whether the added bodies and a fresh look in net are enough to tilt a game that carries more weight than a typical early-season road stop. [Read more 🡒]