RECAP: Red Wings finish four-game homestand with 3-2 loss to Senators

DETROIT -- Seeing the race to secure a 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs berth in the Eastern Conference only continue to tighten, the Detroit Red Wings couldn’t pull off the multi-goal comeback in a 3-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday night.

“It was good to be back out there with the guys,” said Detroit captain Dylan Larkin, who scored a power-play goal in his return from a seven-game absence due to a lower-body injury he sustained on March 6. “I gave it all I had. I feel like we did as a team as well and found a way to get back into this one. That’s what we’re going to need down the stretch.”

Netminder John Gibson made 18 saves for the Red Wings (38-25-8; 84 points), who finished 3-1-0 against the Senators (38-24-9; 85 points) in the regular-season series. Goalie Linus Ullmark, meanwhile, stopped 31 shots to help them move into a tie with the New York Islanders for that second Wild-Card spot.  

“We were a bit slower, a little bit sluggish, for whatever reason,” Detroit head coach Todd McLellan said. “We put pucks into areas that we wanted to, but we didn’t win those areas after so suddenly, we’re coming out of the end. Got some pucks to the net, but we didn’t get the screen, tip-in or deflection areas, which I thought we did against Boston, but we didn’t do that tonight against Ottawa.”

It looked as if the Red Wings struck first on their second man advantage of the first period on a backdoor tap-in by Alex DeBrincat off a great feed from Lucas Raymond at 15:25, but the Senators nullified what would’ve been the Farmington Hills, Mich., native’s team-leading 36th goal of the season by successfully challenging that Patrick Kane was in the offensive zone before the puck.

“Kaner’s done that hundreds of thousands of times, and it just goes offside,” Larkin said. “It is what it is. But then, we have the puck on our stick a couple of times, we don’t get our clears and then it ends up in our net.”

That “tough swing,” as Larkin called it, ended up benefitting Ottawa, as captain Brady Tkachuk redirected Tim Stützle’s shot while the Senators were on their second power play of the first just 1:50 later that put the visitiors in front 1-0 instead.

“There’s rules in play for certain reasons,” McLellan said. “We ran out of time the other night against Boston. We were clearly offside on the entry, so if the linesman picked that up and made the right call, we wouldn’t even be talking about the goal that didn’t count. That’s why the rules are there.”

The Red Wings saw things slip away from them a little bit before the 12-minute mark of the middle frame -- Carter Yakemchuk, in his NHL debut, made it 2-0 at 9:28 and Lars Eller followed 1:57 later to push Ottawa in front 3-0 -- before they finally beat Ullmark.  

At 14:50 of the second period, Simon Edvinsson sent a pass right to the stick of Dominik Shine and the current captain of the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins redirected it into the back of the net to cut it to 3-1. Moritz Seider picked up a secondary assist on Shine’s third goal of the season, giving him 12 points (two goals, 10 assists) in his last 14 contests.

"We got to get more bodies in front of the net," Seider said. "I think games are going to be won on both sides of the ice there."

Larkin’s 29th of the season made it a one-goal game at 4:13 of the third period, bringing it to 3-2.

Assisted by DeBrincat and Raymond, Larkin is now one point away from tying Brendan Shanahan (633) for 10th place on the Red Wings' all-time scoring list as well as one goal from his fifth straight 30-goal campaign and sixth of his NHL career.

Although Detroit did have some looks late, including after Gibson was pulled for the extra skater, it ultimately finished pointless against an Atlantic Division foe for the second straight game. 

"The room is mad," Larkin said. "The guys are mad. That was a big game for our hockey team. And unfortunate, for how well we played against those guys all year and this one tonight, it kind of wipes away our record against those guys. That was a big game, but we're going into Buffalo on Friday night. We have to pick ourselves back up, and that's mental toughness."

NEXT UP: The Red Wings will look rebound when they take on the Atlantic Division-leading Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Friday night in what also marks the first half of a weekend back-to-back set.

WHAT WAS SAID

McLellan on Emmitt Finnie, exited after taking a heavy hit late in the game

“He had to go into the [concussion] protocol with, I don’t know, three-and-a-half to four minutes left. So we know, unless there was overtime, we weren’t going to see him. He’s still completing that, so I don’t have an update for you.”

Larkin on the importance of jumping on a team like the Senators, who played on Monday night, early

"We knew with their D, playing big minutes last night and being short-handed, we put pucks behind them and forechecked. I felt like it paid off in the third period. They were tired and had heavy legs going back for pucks."

Seider on the club's urgency level following this setback

"Probably puts a little bit more pressure on us, but nothing has changed. Obviously, very, very disappointing outcome tonight. You have the chances and you play good hockey, but then the simple mistakes end up in the back of the net."