For the second time in just over a week, the Detroit Red Wings were felled by the struggling Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre. While Tuesday night’s matchup wasn’t as dominating on the scoreboard as last Saturday night, it may as well have been.
The Habs controlled play for the game’s first two minutes, culminating in forward Nick Suzuki’s first goal of the season and putting Detroit in an early hole. A second goal by forward Josh Anderson would increase Montreal’s lead midway through the game’s opening frame.
Despite several key saves from goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic, Detroit wasn’t able to muster anything for him on the other end of the ice and were shut out for the second time in the 2021-22 season.
And needless to say, head coach Jeff Blashill wasn’t thrilled with how his team performed.
“They were better than us from the first shift all the way to the last shift,” a frustrated Blashill said afterwards. “They played like it was a playoff game; we played like it was an exhibition game.
“That isn’t even close to what we need to do to be successful. That wasn’t even in the hemisphere of what we need to do.”
Detroit was already shorthanded coming into tonight’s game thanks to the absence of Tyler Bertuzzi, who has refused the COVID-19 vaccination and is therefore unable to play in Canadian cities. The team was also missing captain Dylan Larkin, who didn’t play due to “personal reasons”.
The Red Wings are expected to get both Larkin and Bertuzzi back for Thursday night’s game against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden.
