DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings hit the road for their longest trip of the season following tonight’s game against Boston at Little Caesars Arena. The last thing they want to hear is discontent from fans when they exit the ice.
“Especially after a couple duds in a row here at home,” Patrick Kane said. “Never fun getting booed off the ice at home. So should be an advantage for us playing in this building. We get some really good crowds. Energy’s always good. Try to make it a tough place to play for the opponent. Should be a great advantage for us.”
Problem is, it hasn’t been. The Red Wings are 8-6-1 at home. They are finishing a stretch of 10 out of 13 at LCA, one they haven’t capitalized on, going 3-5-1, including back-to-back 6-3 losses to Nashville and Tampa Bay.
“We want to take care of home ice,” Lucas Raymond said. “We haven’t really done that lately. And we’re going to be far away for a while. So, tonight’s big for us against (a) divisional opponent. You got to give something back to our fans as well.”
These teams complete a home-and-home set that started with Boston’s 3-2 shootout victory Saturday in a physical, chippy game. The Red Wings (13-11-2) start a six-game trip Thursday in Columbus.
Six points separate the top 13 teams in the Eastern Conference, and Red Wings coach Todd McLellan believes that parity has somewhat eroded home-ice advantage.
“Part of the parity in the league is that the majority of teams have played fairly well on the road,” McLellan said. “If you look at road records, there’s not an 0-10 team or anything like that. There’s a lot of 4-6 and 5-7 or 7-5. Other than Colorado (10-0-2), everybody else is in that pack and it’s (because of) road play.
“Anytime the road plays even like that, that means home play is even like that. And we’re no different. The parity always evens out home and road. We would like to win a lot more and play a lot better at home just to make it more difficult on that parity.”