Defensive miscues led to the second of back to back losses agains the Dallas Stars for the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday night deep in the heart of Texas.
Several blown coverages led to easy Dallas goals, leaving head coach Jeff Blashill after the game clearly frustrated with what transpired on the ice.
“I think this crew has been pretty good defensively. We haven’t given up many Grade A (scoring opportunities) compared to the rest of the league,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “Tonight, I thought we were terrible defensively in those situations. We competed like crazy in the offensive zone. We were on them. We worked hard. Then they came down and we gave easy goals away. We have to be a great defensive team. What happened tonight isn’t good enough.”
Tanner Kero, Jason Robertson, Joe Pavelski and Jamie Oleksiak all scored for the host Stars, who chased Red Wings starter Jonathan Bernier after tallying four goals on 12 shots.
Dylan Larkin and Valtteri Filppula scored for Detroit, who dropped to 16-25-7 and are winless in their past three.
“We have to have simple defensive principles of protecting the slot, riding your check back to the net, and when you’re above people stay above people,” Blashill said.
“We can’t be a team that’s chasing the game like that. We got to be a team that’s air-tight defensively.”
For Larkin, it was just his third goal in his past 21 games.
“Offensive players care about scoring,” Blashill said. “It matters to them, matters to their confidence. But that’s not how I judge Dylan at all.
“I judge Dylan on how he leads this hockey team, No. 1, and making sure he’s leading by example to build a foundation of winning hockey, and then the completeness of his game. Certainly, we need him to produce offense as well. So, I judge Dylan more on other things than just scoring, but certainly for his sake it’s always good for offensive guys to score.”
– – Quotes via Ansar Khan of MLive Link – –
