Wings drop fourth in a row Sunday night against Calgary at The Joe

 

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT – “Our process has to be better, and then we’ve gotta man up and be better as individuals.”

That’s a message Wings head coach Jeff Blashill had after his team’s effort in Sunday-night’s 3-2 loss to the Calgary Flames. In the process, Detroit dropped its fourth-straight game. Tomas Tatar and Anthony Mantha scored for Detroit, while Garnet Hathaway, Matt Stajan and Mikael Backlund all found the back of the net for Calgary, who was without budding star Johnny Gaudreau.

“Not good enough, we talked about our process being great and results being great, and we didn’t do either,” Blashill said.

Jimmy Howard stopped 23 of 26 shots in the loss, one of the lone bright spots for Detroit as he has been all season.

“He continues to play good. I think he’s made the saves he’s supposed to make,” Blashill said. “Both, first two goals I think it hit people in front and third goal, not much he could do on that, so I think he’s done a real good job.”

Tatar opened the scoring with 11:54 remaining in the opening period to put the Wings on the board first. In the slot, Tatar spun around and took a no-look forehand shot along the ice through traffic that fooled Flames goaltender Chad Johnson for his third of the campaign. Justin Abdelkader and Alexey Marchenko drew the helpers on the goal, which came as a result of sustained pressure and cycling in the Calgary zone.

Hathaway then tipped home a Dougie Hamilton point shot for for his first NHL goal at 3:40 of the second stanza to even things at one.

After taking a hard hit along the boards in the neutral zone during the period, Wings defenseman Alexey Marchenko was forced to leave the game and ultimately did not return due to an upper-body injury. Blashill had no immediate update on his condition after the game, but did say it looked like he would be out for “a little bit.”

Stajan gave the Flames the go-ahead goal at 2:31 of the third period, as he tipped a Hamilton point shot past Howard for his first goal of the season.

With 12:01 left in the game, Mantha struck for the Wings with his first goal of the season in his fourth game. Seconds after he whiffed on a 2-on-1 opportunity, Mantha corralled the puck behind the Flames’ goal, pivoted out in front to the left of Johnson and – from the bottom of the circle – sniped a quick shot off the back bar and down on the short side.

“It feels great obviously, but would rather get the win than the goal for sure,” Mantha sad.

Blashill said it was a good game for Mantha, especially the second half.

“That was a big goal, a big-time goal-scorer’s goal, so that’s real good,” Blashill said. “We need more guys playing at a real high level.”

But shortly after, poor defensive coverage resulted in Backlund’s back-door goal, which gave the Flames a one-goal lead once again and enough to close out the win.

“We better pick ourselves up, and we better come to work tomorrow to get better, and we better put the work in that it takes to earn confidence come Wednesday,” Blashill said. “That’s the bottom line, so we better pick ourselves up in a hurry and focus on coming to win a hockey game on Wednesday.”

“It’s not fun, losing is not fun, but we’re in it,” Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg said. “We’ve gotta turn this around. Stretches like this make you stronger, will glue a team together.”

Notes: Thomas Vanek returned after missing the last 11 games due to injury.