Wings fall behind early to Panthers, drop 5-2 decision

 

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT – The Red Wings came out with a flat start Sunday night at Joe Louis Arena, and the Florida Panthers made them pay for it.

Led by Colton Sceviour’s hat trick and four-point night, the Panthers took a 3-0 lead early and never looked back, topping the Wings by a 5-2 score. Petr Mrazek allowed four goals on ten shots before being replaced by Jimmy Howard. Howard allowed one on 14 shots. After winning six straight, Detroit has dropped its last two games.

“I think without question you’ve gotta look at yourself in the mirror and make sure you’re ready to go, and we had too many guys not ready to go,” Detroit head coach Jeff Blashill said.

“We gave up way too many big-time chances. I thought we had done a real good job of not doing that overall since the Rangers game. Even last night, we didn’t give up that many good chances like that, and today, there was just too many big-time chances.”

Photos by Michael Caples/MiHockey

If there was any silver lining, it was Dylan Larkin and Brendan Smith scoring power-play goals to snap a four-game drought in that department.

“It was good to see we got two goals there, even though we needed them probably a little earlier,” Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg said.

At 6:09 of the opening frame and just 12 seconds into Florida’s first power play, Sceviour potted his first of the game, tapping home a cross-crease pass from Little Caesars alum Vincent Trocheck.

And a mere 23 seconds later on the ensuing shift, Sceviour potted another to put the Panthers up by a pair, capitalizing on a broken play in front to whack home a loose puck.

Jonathan Marchessault tacked on another one to cap off a nightmarish 20 minutes for the Wings.

“We knew after the first period, we were down 3-0 and we didn’t come out hard enough tonight, and it cost us right away,” Wings defenseman Danny DeKeyser said.

Just 2:36 into the second period, Larkin broke the Wings’ recent power-play drought with his third goal of the season, a one-timer off a Brendan Smith feed.

But Trocheck potted his fourth of the season just over two minutes later to regain a three-goal lead for Florida. Mrazek, who allowed four goals on ten shots, was pulled in favor of Howard after the goal.

“Petr’s been excellent for us; I just didn’t want to leave him out there and continue to hang him to dry,” Blashill said. “Sometimes you just need a momentum change, so I was hoping a momentum change we could gain from that. That was it and both goalies have been excellent. It certainly wasn’t their fault.”

Sceviour completed his hat trick with just under four minutes to play in the period – a shorthanded marker no less to go along with his even-strength and power-play tallies – which gave the Panthers a commanding 5-1 advantage.

Smith responded for the Red Wings with a power-play goal with just under ten minutes to play in the third period, taking a feed from Frans Nielsen in tight and roofing a one-timer over Reimer.

That was as close as the Wings would get, as the Wings fell to 6-4-0 on the season and have dropped two straight since winning six in a row.