Fresh off perhaps their most impressive win of the season to date, the Red Wings blanked the NHL-leading Colorado Avalanche, 2-0, at Ball Arena on Monday to snap a three-game winless streak and earn their first victory in regulation against their once fierce rival since a 5-1 result at Joe Louis Arena on March 18, 2017.
“I thought a lot of different facets of that game for us were very positive,” van Riemsdyk said. “Overall, I think the response that we showed...We paid attention to details against a really good team that has had a lot of success on home ice, and for us to go in there and play as strongly as we did is a good measuring-stick game for us. I liked a lot of different things about our game. That should be the bar that we try to hold ourselves to down the stretch.”
Following Wednesday’s contest, Detroit won’t play again until Feb. 26, kicking off a final 24-game sprint with a three-game road trip against the Ottawa Senators, Carolina Hurricanes (Feb. 28) and Nashville Predators (March 2).
When discussing the club’s Centennial season to this point, van Riemsdyk credited steady consistency as a defining strength. The Red Wings entered Wednesday four points behind the Tampa Bay Lightning, who had three games in hand, for first place in the Atlantic Division.
“Playing to our identity and not having those kinds of mental lapses where we’re giving away things for free, things like that have gotten better and better as the year’s gone on,” van Riemsdyk said. “I think we just have to continue to find that consistency in our game and just keep raising our execution level because it gets harder and harder as the games go down the stretch.”
Posting a 7-3-10 record in their last 10 games, the Mammoth are one point ahead of the Seattle Kraken for the Western Conference’s first Wild-Card spot. Most recently, Utah pulled away for a 6-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Monday.
“They’re playing very well,” McLellan said of the Mammonth. “Their 5-on-5 game is as good as anybody’s in the League right now. They have a real positive number when it comes to that. They play with a lot of pace.”
This season, Utah’s offense is spearheaded by captain Clayton Keller (52 points), Nick Schmaltz (51 points), and Dylan Guenther (46 points). Goaltender Karel Vejmelka has been a true workhorse for the Mammoth, posting a 26-14-2 record with a 2.61 goals-against average and .901 save percentage with one shutout through 43 appearances.
“Their top two lines can really hurt you off the rush, but they can also hurt you in the O-zone because they play a quick game,” McLellan added. “Vejmelka has played very well, especially here at home. Not an easy place to play. A tough task at hand, but we better be up for it.”
