DETROIT — Knowing very well that every point down this home stretch could make or break their goal of securing a 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs berth, the Detroit Red Wings felt like they let a big one slip away in a 4-3 shootout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the situation we\u2019re in and, obviously, points are at a premium,\u201d Justin Faulk said. \u201cTough to let that one get away from us there at the end of the third and for them to get back in it. Obviously, a chance in overtime and shootout\u2019s a coin flip. Tough to not seal that one up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goaltender John Gibson made 32 saves for the Red Wings (40-29-9; 89 points), who not only saw their home-ice winless streak reach five straight games but now trail the Ottawa Senators (41-27-10; 92 points) by three points for the Eastern Conference\u2019s second Wild-Card spot. As for the Blue Jackets (39-27-12; 90 points), they stayed two points behind the Senators and ended a six-game winless skid behind 34 saves from netminder Jet Greaves.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot a lot of complaints about the effort, intensity,\u201d Detroit head coach Todd McLellan said. \u201cIt felt like a pretty even game. A lot of battles, a lot of blocked shots. Those are all good signs for our team. We got a point, and that point may keep us alive. There\u2019s still points on the table. We have to come back, have a good practice tomorrow and get ready to play Philly. We\u2019re in must-win territory now, so we\u2019re still there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the Red Wings surrendered the game-opening goal to Danton Heinen — he was in the slot when he finished off Mason Marchment\u2019s centering pass from in front of the goal line — just 2:04 into the first period, they made good on their first man advantage of the night a little bit later.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t like going down 1-0 that quick, but in the past few weeks when that has happened, we\u2019ve gone away for a little while and all of a sudden it\u2019s two or three,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cI thought we performed well and got ourselves back into the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larkin saw Alex DeBrincat at the backdoor while the pair of Detroit forwards were down low, and his attempted cross-crease feed was blocked by Erik Gudbranson but fortunately bounced right back for him to sneak it through Greaves\u2019 five-hole to make it 1-1 at 10:27. The assists on Larkin\u2019s 31st goal of the season went to Patrick Kane and Moritz Seider.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he moved better and had more of an impact on the game,\u201d McLellan said of Larkin. \u201cHe was taking pucks to the net, which is always a good sign\u2026Tonight, he was doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT — Knowing very well that every point down this home stretch could make or break their goal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[3644,5180,897,230,5179,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-546967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-blue-jackets","9":"tag-bluejackets","10":"tag-columbus","11":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","12":"tag-columbusbluejackets","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116367883255329390","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}