Detroit Red Wings

Duffer’s Dabbles: Red Wings Need To Keep Ball Rolling

Published

2 years ago

January 16, 2022

Bob Duff

Tyler Bertuzzi thinks the Red Wings need to go to Buffalo on Monday and carry the momentum from Saturday's 4-0 win over the Sabres with them.

As impressive as Saturday’s 4-0 victory over the Buffalo Sabres was, the Detroit Red Wings are preferring to look upon their solid effort as a launching point. If they don’t continue with the winning, it won’t really matter.

The Red Wings are playing a return engagement with the Sabres in Buffalo on Monday afternoon and are again viewing the affair as a must win.

“Yeah, I think you can feel good about it,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said of Saturday’s win. “Certainly the special teams can walk away feeling good, Obviously, (goalie) Alex (Nedeljkovic), he’s played good hockey lately and getting the shutout you feel really good.”

Bottom line? It’s a good start.

“I think the biggest thing is we gotta answer the bell on Monday now,” Blashill said. “It’s a relentless league. It was a good win. There’s moments where we played good hockey but we gotta go win a hockey game Monday.

“I think very quickly we gotta turn the page to what we did well, what we didn’t do well. We’ll do that, go over it (Sunday) and then try to win a hockey game on Monday.”

Bruins Keep On Winning

Detroit’s biggest problem is that the Boston Bruins, the team they are chasing for the final Wild Card playoff spot in the NHL’s Eastern Conference, are on fire. While the Red Wings are 3-5-2 in their last 10 games, the Bruins are 8-2. Boston is seven points ahead of Detroit and are holding four games in hand.

“Obviously, every losing streak you got to stop it,” Wings forward Tyler Bertuzzi said. “But the biggest game is the next one and we got to back it up on Monday.”