RECAP: Detroit's two-game homestand ends with 5-4 loss to St. Louis

DETROIT -- Unable to protect two separate two-goal leads in the finale of their two-game homestand, the Detroit Red Wings dropped a 5-4 decision to the St. Louis Blues at Little Caesars Arena on Saturday afternoon.

“Maybe this is good for us,” Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan said. “We started to feel comfortable. We still know what we need to do. We have to do it. It doesn’t just magically show up and poof, you got it. And quite frankly, I thought in the first period and a half, we were doing it and doing it well. Maybe we got a little comfortable or lackadaisical, and it comes back to bite you. So, real valuable lesson for our team."

Detroit (6-5-3; 15 points) held St. Louis (7-6-1; 15 points) to just nine shots through the first two periods, and at one point the Blues went 26:38 between shots on goal. Between the pipes for their respective clubs, netminder John Gibson made 10 saves and goalie Joel Hofer finished with 24.  

“We have a two-goal lead in the third period at home,” Lucas Raymond said. “We should be able to close that game out…A lot of fixable stuff as well, so we for sure right now have to learn from it and move on.”

All the action in the first period came in its first half, as Detroit’s third line – Michael Rasmussen, J.T. Compher and Nate Danielson – tied it at 1-1 just 5:44 after Dalibor Dvorsky used his backhand to beat Gibson on St. Louis’ first shot of the afternoon at 2:29.

With Danielson applying pressure from his back, Hofer misplayed the puck behind the goal line. Rasmussen then scooped it up and curled towards the net before passing it back to Compher, who was driving to the net, in the right face-off circle for a no doubter-one-timer while Hofer was still trying to get back into the crease. Since returning from an undisclosed injury last Thursday, Compher has recorded four points (one goal, three assists) in his past five games.

Forty-one seconds into the second period, the Red Wings took a 2-1 lead on Keegan Kolesar’s first goal of the season – also his first goal/point with his new club. It all began deep in Detroit’s own zone, where Justin Faulk got the puck to Carter Mazur. Then, the 24-year-old forward took off up the ice and slipped a pass between two Blues defensemen to Kolesar in the neutral zone, creating a partial breakaway. Kolesar stayed patient, showed off some stickhandling and got a step on Hofer.

"Nice, but a defeat like that really just glooms the rest of the day," Kolesar said of his goal.

Lucas Raymond’s fifth goal in his last six games gave Detroit a 3-1 advantage at 13:14 of the second period. Theo Lindstein was along the goal line when Raymond stripped him of the puck, and the former fourth-round pick in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft proceeded to swing himself up around the left wall and through the face-off circle. Raymond then made a quick move to shake Pius Suter, giving himself a little bit of space, and sent a wrist shot through some traffic into the back of the net.

“I’m feeling good,” Raymond said. “I like where my game is at. Obviously, there’s stuff you always want to tweak and improve on, and it’s no different right now. You keep searching for that edge.”

The Blues struck back with 28 seconds remaining before the second intermission, as Jimmy Snuggerud poked in a loose puck at the far post after captain Robert Thomas took it out of the corner to pull things within 3-2.

“If we get through the period, I think we can fix things,” McLellan said. “But now we get scored on, on just a sloppy play in my opinion, and all of the sudden the momentum’s starting to swing. We have to learn to deal with that.”

Justin Faulk, who spent parts of seven seasons (2019-26) with St. Louis before Detroit acquired him via trade last March, drew a tripping penalty against Jake Neighbours early in the third period. That set the stage for Emmitt Finnie’s power-play goal at 3:29, which was set up by Raymond and Seider, that gave the Red Wings a 4-2 advantage.

However, a third-period surge from St. Louis changed everything. The visitors scored three straight goals in a span of 4:38, including tallies from Justin Barron and Aleksanteri Kaskimäki only 18 seconds apart, to snatch a win from the hosts.

“What we do works when we have the details in it and we showed it for the first half of the game,” McLellan said. “It didn’t look the same in the second half. Yeah, they make a few adjustments, but we were lazy. We were a little bit sloppy and didn’t do what we needed to do, and it came back to bite us. So, as upset as I am of losing that game, and it’ll sting for a while, I’m supper happy with the front half and not so happy with the back half. And now we have great teaching moments.”

NEXT UP: Detroit returns to the the road for a back-to-back set in the Sunshine State, opening against the Florida Panthers at Amerant Bank Arena on Monday night.

POSTGAME QUOTES

McLellan on what led to Saturday’s final score

“We got sloppy. You’ve heard me use the word checking. Those checking skills, I think the intent was still there but the execution and the details in it weren’t, and we paid the price.”

McLellan on Gibson’s play

“First one, no chance. Second one, back post on the rim. Really no chance. Two lasers from the hashmarks, one was a one-timer. Last one was a tip-in. So, you can look at five (goals) on 15 (shots) or whatever it was, and it’s not going to show up real well in his number column but maybe get one of them. But don’t pin that on John Gibson by any means.”

Raymond on the third period

“I don’t know how to explain it, but I thought that was far from our standard that we want to play. What we’ve worked really hard to get to as a team as well. So yeah, far from good enough.”

Kolesar on what changed in the final frame compared to the first two 

“The details slipped. Forecheck, neutral zone, D-zone, giving them grade-A opportunities. We leave a man in front of the net wide open. They made good on it.”