Red Wings on Lucas Raymond status, opportunity for Mason Appleton
Detroit Red Wings Mason Appleton & Todd McLellan, Oct. 15, 2025 in Detroit.
The Detroit Red Wings again showed how much better of a team they are when they play with pace and energy.
They hosted the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on Wednesday, Oct. 15, and even with significant injury absences on both sides, the teams put on an entertaining performance. The Wings were fortified by two goals from Mason Appleton and another solid performance by goalie Cam Talbot that led to a 4-1 victory and a win streak that grew to three.
Appleton scored for a second straight game and Patrick Kane edged a goal closer to 500 during the second period. Talbot, making his third straight start, had a busy stretch midway through the third period, but it was stemmed when Florida defenseman Jeff Petry took a tripping penalty and sent his former teammates on a power play. The Panthers pulled their goalie with three minutes to play, and Appleton used the opportunity to score again. Michael Rasmussen also scored into an empty net in the final 20 seconds.
The Panthers were supposed to show signs of weakness after losing superstar Aleksander Barkov blew out his right knee, likely costing him the entire regular season, but they came to Detroit having won three of their first four games. The Wings were without top-line winger Lucas Raymond, who is day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
The Wings showed much more pop from the get-go than Monday in Toronto, testing Sergei Bobrovsky from the opening shift on a chance by Michael Brandsegg-Nygård.
Apppleton, whose last goal won the game in Toronto, followed up with a first goal against Florida, connecting on a pass from Dylan Larkin and managing to fire a shot while falling backwards and sliding into a Panthers defender.
A few minutes later Marco Kasper landed in the penalty box, but with 21 seconds to go in that infraction, so did Panthers star defenseman Aaron Ekblad. While he was still in the box, he was joined by another Panthers D-man, Niko Mikkola, giving the Wings 44 seconds with a two-man advantage.
They needed only 6 seconds of it. Larkin won the draw, Moritz Seider collected the puck and passed to Kane, who slid backwards a couple steps and wired the puck top shelf for career goal No. 494. Kane was on the receiving end of some showmanship soon after, as veteran Brad Marchand – who used to torment the Wings as a longtime member of the Boston Bruins – carried the puck behind Talbot’s net, with Kane giving chase as Marchand came around to the front and angled the puck into the net to put Florida on the board.
Brandsegg-Nygård made a diving play to set up a chance for fellow rookie Emmitt Finnie in the latter half of the third period, but Bobrovsky denied the snapshot.
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