Detroit — The new year hasn’t gone so well for the Red Wings.

After closing 2025 with the best NHL record in December (11-3-1) and no back-to-back losses, Detroit was swept by the Pittsburgh Penguins to begin 2026.

The Penguins beat the Red Wings, 4-1, in a Saturday matinee at Little Caesars Arena after beating Detroit on Thursday, 4-3, in overtime at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.

“The Pittsburgh team was everything we wanted to be, and weren’t,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. “They started on time with an intensity that backed us off. They were faster than we were. They smothered us in three zones. They checked for their chances.

“Their game management, they didn’t give up a breakaway on a line change. They won the faceoff battle, they won the board battle, they won the net battle. Those were the things we wanted to do. We didn’t do any of them.”

Alex DeBrincat scored the only goal for the Red Wings, who had a season-low 12 shots, while goalie John Gibson stopped 27 shots. DeBrincat had four of Detroit’s 12 shots and Axel Sandin-Pellikka was the only defenseman with a shot on goalie Stuart Skinner.

“Everyone is saying the right thing, shoot the puck … and then everyone gets on the ice and we don’t shoot it,” said center J.T. Compher, who failed to record a shot on goal. “We probably ended up with half as many shots as we wanted.”

Bryan Rust (Pontiac), Yegor Chinakhov, Rickard Rakell and Connor Dewar scored goals and Skinner made 11 saves for the Penguins, who have won four in a row and moved into a tie for the first wild-card position with the Washington Capitals.

BOX SCORE: Penguins 4, Red Wings 1

“Overall, as a unit of five, we did a pretty good job of limiting their chances from the middle,” said Pittsburgh’s veteran defenseman Kris Letang, who led the team in ice time (22:26) and had an assist. “We made sure everything came from the outside and we did a pretty job of tying up their sticks in front of the net.”

Detroit is 24-15-4 and fell into second place in the Eastern Conference after Tampa Bay moved into top spot by one point. The Lightning won for the seventh straight game Saturday, beating San Jose, 7-2.

The Wings, who have played two more games than Tampa Bay, will be in Ottawa on Monday to face the Atlantic Division-rival Senators and then return home Thursday against the last-place Vancouver Canucks.

“We just weren’t direct enough,” Wings defenseman Moritz Seider said. “We were a little bit too cute, east-west, not nearly as many shots as we’re used to taking.”

It was another slow start by the Red Wings, who fell behind 2-0 on Thursday before the six-minute mark of the first period on a pair of goals by Sidney Crosby.

On Saturday, in front of a national TV audience on ABC, Crosby, the three-time Stanley Cup champion who became the youngest captain in NHL history at age 21 to win the Cup in Detroit in 2009, set up the first goal by Rust at 3:44 in the first period.

After a turnover by Emmitt Finnie in the neutral zone, Crosby crossed the blue line against Seider and Simon Edvinsson and the top line of Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond and Finnie, and found Rust open on a cross-ice feed. Rust scored his 16th of the season on his off wing, firing the puck over Gibson’s glove.

Finnie has been a team-worst minus-five in the last two games and was replaced by Marco Kasper later in the game.

“I didn’t think that line had anything going so we tried something different,” McLellan said. “In the past, he (Kasper) has proven he can handle it so we made that move. Their extended cycle time and O-zone time isn’t there and they have to get it back.”

For Crosby, now 38 years old, the point moved him past Red Wings legend Gordie Howe into ninth all-time place in the NHL with 779 career road points.

The Penguins made it 2-0 at 17:30 of the first period on a bad line change by the Red Wings.

With Compher’s line with Mason Appleton and Michael Rasmussen heading to the bench and Seider replaced by Albert Johansson, Chinakhov got behind the defense, took a long pass from Ben Kindel and beat Gibson along the ice on a breakaway.

“We have a D joining the rush (Edvinsson), the forwards are tired, we lob a saucer pass into the middle and it’s coming back at us,” McLellan said. “You could say it was a poor line change but those forwards needed to get off. They had no protection.”

In the second period, DeBrincat narrowed the lead to 2-1, with his team-leading 22nd goal of the season.

After a shot by former Michigan Wolverine Rutger McGroarty went wide and ricocheted to center ice, DeBrincat led a 2-on-1 rush with Andrew Copp, using Copp as a decoy, and ripped a wrist shot over Skinner’s shoulder, on the Wings’ seventh shot of the game.

It was DeBrincat’s 275th career goal, tying Jimmy Carson for fifth-most by a Michigan-born player in NHL history behind Mike Modano (561), Brian Rolston (342), Kyle Connor (302) and Doug Weight (278).

Rakell and Dewar added empty-net goals for Pittsburgh in the final minute.

“From start to finish, we didn’t play to the standard we’ve been playing lately,” Seider said. “Obviously, that’s disappointing, so we gotta regroup, dig in a little room and as a group you got to look at the standings and be happy still.”

mfalkner@detroitnews.com

@mfalkner

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