Patrick Kane and the Detroit Red Wings defeated a struggling Boston Bruins squad on Saturday night. However, the next team on the Red Wings schedule is having the exact opposite sort of luck on the ice. Detroit will take on the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Blues are one of the hottest teams in the NHL at this time. St. Louis has won nine straight games, establishing themselves as a Wild Card contender in the West. In fact, St. Louis has a six-point lead over the Vancouver Canucks for the final Wild Card spot in the conference. And they are tied on points with the Minnesota Wild for the top Wild Card spot.
Kane and the Red Wings will need to put forth their best effort of the season to win this game. Detroit has lost 11 of its last 15 games, all of them in regulation. This is a major challenge for the Winged Wheel as they sit three points back of a Wild Card spot. But it’s a challenge Kane is looking forward to.
“They’ve won nine in a row, and someone’s probably going to stop that at some point,” Kane said, via Jonathan Mills of DetroitRedWings.com. “Hopefully it’s us and it gives us a lot of momentum and confidence the rest of the way. It’ll be a great test for us. They’re firing on all cylinders right now and it seems like they have been ever since they hired Jim Montgomery as head coach.”
How Red Wings hope to defeat Blues
Detroit Red Wings defenseman Ben Chiarot (8) congratulates goaltender Cam Talbot (39) after they beat the Boston Bruins at Little Caesars Arena. Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images
The Red Wings have had a couple of off days to prepare for the Blues. Kane and his team hope to build upon their victory over the Bruins on Saturday. But they recognize they need to “frustrate” St. Louis to get them off their game, as captain Dylan Larkin mentioned on Monday.
Larkin also broke down how his team can come away with a victory. St. Louis thrives on creating pressure in the offensive zone through its forecheck. As a result, Detroit needs to rely on its transition game to break pucks out of the zone as efficiently as possible.
“I think they forecheck really hard,” Larkin said, via Mills. “We saw some video this morning, and we’re going to have to be ready for that. We’re going to have to break the puck out well. I think when we’re a good team, we’re skating five guys up the ice, forechecking [as a] five-man unit. When we’re playing well, we’re breaking the puck out [as a] five-man unit as well. We worked on that today and it’s going to have to translate tomorrow.”
The Red Wings need these two points in order to keep pace in the Wild Card race. It certainly won’t be easy, but it’s certainly a game they can win. This could be a must-win game for a Detroit team looking to avoid a ninth straight season without postseason hockey.
