Red Wings Fall in Shootout

The Detroit Red Wings were better on Saturday night, but, again, they weren’t good enough to steal a win.

After consecutive games allowing six goals, the Wings had a better effort on Saturday but the Boston Bruins got a pair of goals from Morgan Geekie in regulation, and then scored the only goal in the shootout to hand Detroit a 3-2 loss.

“It was a tough, tough game to play,’ Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said, ‘There’s a lot of tight checking, not a lot of loose ice, a heavy game at times.”

Part of the weight came from Geekie, who scored twice, his 19th and 20th goals of the season. The other part came with an offense that gained momentum as the game progressed, outshooting Boston 12-5 in the third period, but struggled to score until getting the game-tying score with less than two minutes left in regulation after pulling goalie Cam Talbot.

Red Wings Better Down the Stretch

“To find our game as the night went on was a positive sign,” McLellan said. “But I was disappointed in the special teams, power play, penalty kill, and the shootout. We were on the short end of all three, and you can’t lose all three, and that’s probably why we gave up the point.”

After a scoreless first period, Geekie scored early in the second, and it stayed that way until Lucas Raymond tied the game six minutes into the third period. Geekie gave Boston the lead again with a power-play goal 13 minutes into the third.

In the dying moments of regulation time, the Wings pulled Talbot for an extra attacker, and the move paid off when Michael Rasmussen scored with less than two minutes to go.

The Wings applied plenty of pressure on the Bruins down the stretch, outshooting Boston 13-4 in the third period and 4-1 in overtime. But they were 0-for-5 on the power play and 0-for-3 in the shootout.

“We’re a little too fine,” McLellan said, “Sometimes we want to slow things down and pick a spot. Sometimes you’ve got to speed them up and get that shot off.”

The Red Wings will have a couple of days to sort that out before meeting the Bruins again on Tuesday, when the teams renew acquaintances at Little Caesars Arena.