The Detroit Red Wings need another long winning streak if they are to make headway in the playoff race.
They had a promising outing on Thursday with a 4-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens and will try to maintain the positive vibes going when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night.
With 49 points, the Red Wings sit four points outside the second wild card in the Eastern Conference but have five teams to leapfrog.
Detroit reeled off a seven-game winning streak shortly after Todd McLellan was named head coach in late December. That was followed by a 1-3-1 stretch heading into the start of a three-game homestand on Thursday.
And the homestand got off to a successful start. The Red Wings scored two first-period goals while outshooting the Canadiens 17-4 in their most recent game.
Montreal recorded back-to-back victories over the Red Wings last month before Derek Lalonde’s dismissal as Detroit’s head coach.
“I liked our start. I thought everybody got into the game,” McLellan said of the Thursday game. “We were aggressive, we looked fast.
“We challenged the group before the game. Part of the pre-game was the two games they played against Montreal pre-Christmas, and in those games, we looked slowed and a little indecisive. We wanted them to give us a guideline of whether we’ve made progress.”
Dylan Larkin notched a power-play goal and an assist in his 700th career game.
“Huge win for us and a memorable night for myself,” Larkin said. “I think it’s going to be memorable the way we played and hopefully we can build off.”
Detroit had a season-high 45 shots on goal, which defenseman Moritz Seider also took as a good sign.
“We can skate with anybody. We’ve got to have a shooting mentality,” he said. “Don’t necessarily be too cute at the start, just really focusing on getting pucks to the net and really grind their defense out. That’s stuff we can do over and over again.”
The Red Wings and Lightning met for the first of four games this season last Saturday in Florida. The Lightning scored four second-period goals en route to a 5-1 victory.
Tampa Bay will play the second game of a back-to-back set on Saturday. The Lightning collected a 4-3 overtime victory over Chicago on Friday night with the aid of two late Blackhawks penalties.
Jake Guentzel scored a power-play goal with 42 seconds remaining in regulation. Chicago was penalized again with four seconds left, and Nikita Kucherov scored the game-winner 58 seconds into the overtime session.
“You just never know in this league,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “It’s so hard to win. It took a little bit for us to get our feet under us, but the boys were driven, especially with not coming away with any points a couple days, going back to back (losses to Toronto and Montreal). We had to exert a lot of energy just to get out of this one. But they did it. That’s all you ask of your team. You can’t quit. You’ve just got to keep going.”
Guentzel and Kucherov each had a goal and two assists in the Lightning’s game last weekend against the Red Wings.
Kucherov will bring an 11-game point streak to Detroit. He has six goals and 13 assists during that span.
–Field Level Media
