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Red Wings Struggling to Find Back of the Net

Detroit has scored two goals or less in eight of the last 11 games

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David Perron, Red Wings
David Perron has scored twice in the last 25 Red Wings games.

Any way you slice it, there’s not much news that’s good at the moment where the Detroit Red Wings are concerned.

The Wings are 2-8-1 through their past 11 games. In eight of those games, Detroit has counted fewer than three goals.

Even given them a man power advantage is backfiring for the Red Wings. They’ve surrendered an NHL-high 12 shortanded goals this season.

Saturday’s 5-1 drubbing handed out by the reigning Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche on Saturday afternon was the latest dagger inserted into Detroit.

“This will be frustrating but probably reality of where we are down the stretch here,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said. “Analytic minions are going to tell us we out-chanced them, all the underlying numbers are going to say we played a pretty good game, but we didn’t execute and their difference-makers were difference-makers.”

That’s the thing about counting chances before they hatch into goals. Victories aren’t manufactured from creating chances. They are won through finishing those chances. And lately, several Red Wings are looking as those they could used a few sessions in finishing schol.

Red Wings Suffering Team-Wide Scoring Slump

Do the math when it comes to Detroit’s goal scoring efficiency and what you discover is that this is a club in the midst of a team-wide scoring slump. Those who recently departed are lighting red lamps. Jabub Vrana has five goals in six games for the St. Louis Blues. Oskar Sundqvist was tallying Saturday for the Minnesota Wild, giving him as many goals on the day as all of his former Red Wings teammates combined.

Pius Suter, the lone goal scorer for Detroit in Saturday’s 5-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche, was netting for the first time in 12 games. Jonatan Berggren has one goal in 14 games. Lucas Raymond is showing one goal in 15 games next to his name. Joe Veleno is goalless in 19 games. He’s scored once of the last 24 games and twice through the past 35 contests.

Filip Zadina has scored twice in 27 games. Dominik Kubalik shows two goals in 14 games and four in 23. Perron has scored twice in 25 games.

Even captain Dylan Larkin, who was hotter than blacktop in July during much of February, scoring seven goals in six games, has cooled off. He’s got three markers over his past 13 games.

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“We’ve had chances the past couple of games, especially (Saturday),” Larkin lamented. “We just didn’t capitalize on them and I think that’s the story. If we get a couple on the power play . . . I had a breakaway, (David Perron) hit the post. We had a lot of looks, we just didn’t capitalize to make it an even game.”

Lalonde sees the frustration mounting in his team as the goals aren’t coming and the losses are mounting.

“We had some flashes of some pretty good hockey there, but obviously not enough,” Lalonde said.