Detroit Red Wings are red hot.
A winning line of six games has Detroit at the top of the Eastern Conference Wild card race on the way into a meeting with the value Seattle Kraken on Tuesday evening.
“It’s fantastic,” said Detroit Forward Patrick Kane about Red Wing’s place in the position after a 3-2 overtime victory against Vancouver Canucks on Sunday evening. “I knew we were a pointed out to come in, so – big win. It was not the most beautiful, but huge win for the team. We find ways to win right now.”
If Detroit can take care of the Kraken on Tuesday, it will complete a sweep of a four-match road trip that started with a 3-2 shootout victory over Edmonton Oilers last Thursday. The red wings then defeated Calgary Flames 3-1 on Saturday before Alex Debrincat did twice and goalkeeper Alex Lyon made 25 rescues to lead the road versus Vancouver.
Debrincat had the game -winning goal at 4:18 in the extra session.
“We are doing well,” said Debrincat, who has 23 goals in the season to match Captain Dylan Larkin for the team. “We can win games that may not be our best performance.”
The red wings, which once looked like a team that would not have to worry about the playoffs, have gone 14-4-1 since Todd McLellan replaced Derek Lalonde as coach on December 26.
McLellan said he was particularly pleased that his players published Back-to-back victories on the road on consecutive nights.
“I give the guys a lot of credit for showing some character,” McLellan said. “As (assistant coach) Trent Yawney says, sometimes the art has to hang in the basement. It wasn’t really beautiful, but we found a way to scrape out a game we didn’t win on our first four-game trip, back-to-back.
The Kraken comes from a disappointing 3-2 loss to visit Calgary on Sunday who dropped them 10 points behind the flames in the hunt for the second and last Western Conference Wild card site.
Seattle seemed to take the lead during the first period, just to get a video overview to allow the goal due to goals for goalkeeper.
After 1-0, the Kraken allowed a goal on a delayed penalty call. They challenged for goal disorders at the end, but the piece stood. The flames made on the subsequent two -man advantage to take a lead in three goals, and Seattle never caught up.
“I think from going 1-0 to down 3-0 with goal stop call, Power Play, five-on-three that followed for three minutes, I think many events during that period were not how we wanted them to go, “said the Kraken coach Dan Bylsma.
Kaapo Kakko and Brandon Tanev scored for Seattle, and Kakko hopes that the Kraken can apply a little more offensive pressure on Tuesday.
“(It was) a hard first 20 (minutes),” Kakko said. “I think we fought after that. It’s pretty close in the end. We got some chances, but that’s not enough.”
-Field level media
