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Wings fall to Leafs to close out brief homestand

MiHockey Staff

 

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(Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey)

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT – The crowd was waiting for it, but it just never happened.

Despite constant pressure, the Red Wings were unable to solve Jonathan Bernier, as he and the Toronto Maple Leafs shut out the Red Wings Sunday afternoon at Joe Louis Arena, a 1-0 final. Michael Grabner had the Leafs’ lone goal, while Bernier stopped all 38 shots he faced. Petr Mrazek allowed just one goal on 27 shots after backstopping the Wings to a win over the New York Rangers the previous day.

“Obviously you want to win this game,” Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg said. “We played real good the other two here and then we lose this one when we’re not coming up to the standard that we want to be at. If you look back at these three games, four points, you obviously want six, but we got four and now we’ve just got to go on the road and play good.”

Despite Bernier having recorded the shutout, Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill said his team didn’t get enough traffic in front of him.

“I didn’t think we had as many quality opportunities as would be reflected by the number of shots,” Blashill said. “I thought it as more shots… we didn’t get to enough seconds and they, I would say, boxed us out and we didn’t do a good-enough job of getting to the inside there.”

Zetterberg echoed his coach’s thoughts.

“We should be able to put at least one behind him with 40 shots,” Zetterberg said.

Turnovers also haunted Detroit, as Detroit gave the puck away 14 times to Toronto’s three.

“Turnovers in the first period was a big issue,” Zetterberg said. “I think we got a lot better in the second and in the third, but in the first, we turned the puck over too much and when you do that, then they get odd-man rushes and they spend time in your end instead of the other way.”

At 12:58 of the first period, the Leafs thought they had the 1-0 lead on a Ben Smith goal, but it was waved off and later reviewed and determined that Smith intentionally directed the puck in with his shoulder.

The Red Wings faced a scary moment late in the opening frame, as Pavel Datsyuk was caught in a sandwich between Toronto’s Leo Komarov and Nazem Kadri near the Detroit bench just inside the blue line. As they all went down, Komarov seemingly gave Datsyuk’s head a small shove into the ice while Kadri had his skate wedged in the back of Datsyuk’s knee. Datsyuk immediately headed down the tunnel to the locker room afterward, but did return halfway through the second period.

“I don’t know if you saw the play. Did you guys see the play? You guys can tell me what you think,” Blashill said after a long pause. “I think it’s a cheap play.”

At 3:06 of the second period, the Wings then had a goal called back, as Luke Glendening batted a puck out of mid-air that bounced down and into the goal after Dylan Larkin rushed the puck up ice and drove the net to generate a rebound.

In the closing minute of the second stanza, Michael Grabner was sprung for a breakaway. Danny DeKeyser tried to catch him, but was forced to haul him down. The referee signaled for a penalty shot, but the play was reviewed and it was determined the puck crossed the line with Grabner’s body before the net came off its moorings, so it was called good goal. Toronto took that 1-0 lead into the dressing room.

“He made a good play knocking down the pass and then he got in,” DeKeyser said. “I can’t say much about the goal, it looked like it went in and they ruled it a goal and that’s how it stands and I don’t really have much else to say about that.”

With the one-goal lead, Toronto was content to sit back and clog the neutral zone, making it difficult for the Wings to gain entry into their zone early on.

Despite their continued persistence, Bernier kept the door shut for Toronto the rest of the way.

The Red Wings head to Philadelphia Tuesday to take on the Flyers, a team breathing down their necks in the standings.

“Every game is extremely important, so now we’ve got to put our sights on Tuesday and say, ‘How are we gonna win the game on Tuesday?’ That’s what I’m thinking about, I’m not thinking about anything else,” Blashill said.

Notes: Darren Helm missed the game due to the flu… Niklas Kronwall was diagnosed with a sprained knee and is expected to miss one to three weeks… For the second time in three games, Dylan Larkin faced a former University of Michigan teammate, as it was former linemate Zach Hyman this time. Larkin told Sportsnet during the first intermission of playing against Hyman, “It’s awesome. I think he’s playing the same way as when we played together. Our chemistry was awesome. He really worked hard, got pucks for me and he scored a lot of goals. It was awesome playing with him and we’re even better friends off the ice.”