RECAP: Red Wings 'had guys contributing all over the place' in 5-3 road victory over Senators

OTTAWA -- Showcasing some new-look forward lines to open Monday night’s Atlantic Division matchup, the Detroit Red Wings netted three first-period goals and held on for a 5-3 victory over the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre.

“Anytime the coach kind of shuffles up the lines a good amount like that, he’s probably just trying to get the team’s attention,” said James van Riemsdyk, who recorded a goal and two assists for his second multi-point game of the season. “I think [Todd McLellan] definitely did that, and I think we came in with the right mindset as a team. We had guys contributing all over the place tonight, and that’s what it takes to win.”

Netminder John Gibson turned aside 35 shots, including all 17 he faced in the first period, to help Detroit (25-15-4; 54 points) reclaim first place in the Eastern Conference. As for the Senators (20-16-5; 45 points), netminder Leevi Merilainen gave up three goals on eight shots in the opening frame and Hunter Shepard made 10 saves across the final two in relief.

“He’s been awesome for us,” Michael Rasmussen said about Gibson. “It’s been really nice having him back there and he’s playing really good. MVP for us tonight.”

Not long after killing off an Ottawa power play early in the opening frame, Detroit wiped away a would-be game-opening goal from Nick Cousins with a successful challenge for offside at 4:06. McLellan, who had called timeout to quickly mull things over before utilizing his coach’s challenge, said that reversal “gave us a little life, a little energy and some belief.”

“We thought [Merilainen] had a little pressure put on him in the past, and we wanted to do that as much as we could, so we got the lead and we held on after that,” McLellan said.

Detroit’s second line – the trio of Alex DeBrincat, Andrew Copp and Patrick Kane – was the only one that remained unchanged following Saturday’s loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and it produced the first goal of the night when Copp stole the puck from Tyler Kleven in the neutral zone and scored on a breakaway to make it 1-0 at 7:06.

Since Dec. 4, Copp has 14 points (five goals, nine assists) and an impressive plus-9 rating in 17 games.

“That line in particular, there’s a reason why we haven’t broken that up,” McLellan said. “They have, from Dec. 1 on, been easily our best scoring and defensive line at 5-on-5. Makes no sense to tap them. We started the lines a certain way tonight and moved them around as we saw fit. Liked some of the stuff we saw, and then there’s others that we’ll have to look at. We’ll eventually find something, for sure.”

Captain Dylan Larkin got it to 2-0 just 6:45 later, scoring his 22nd goal of the season on the Red Wings’ first power play of the night. Meriläinen stopped an initial shot by Alex DeBrincat, then the rebound kicked in front to van Riemsdyk, who quickly found Larkin at the side of the net.

It was also Larkin's 264th career NHL goal, tying Nicklas Lidstrom for 11th place on Detroit’s all-time list.

Netting another goal for Detroit in the closing seconds of the opening frame, van Riemsdyk spun around in the right face-off circle and snapped one in off Nick Jensen that extended it to 3-0 at 19:43. Jacob Bernard-Docker and Albert Johansson assisted on van Riemsdyk’s 11th goal of the campaign.

“Anytime you’re with a new team, as much as you’d like it to be seamless, sometimes it is kind of a process to find how you fit within the group and find some chemistry with some guys,” van Riemsdyk said. “I’d like to think I just continue to get better as the year goes on and have that same approach everyday.”

Claude Giroux got the Senators on the board in the front half of the second period, finishing Fabian Zetterlund’s feed after the latter won a puck battle behind the net to make it 3-1 at 7:33. Then, at 14:10, Dylan Cozens’ power-play goal cut the gap to 3-2.

But less than two minutes later, J.T. Compher was along the left boards when he threaded a pass between a pair of Ottawa skaters to Lucas Raymond in the face-off circle. The Swedish forward took advantage of some space and ripped a wrister past Meriläinen for his 12th goal of the season -- his first at even strength since Nov. 29 -- to push it to 4-2 at 15:42.

“He’s got such a good shot,” McLellan said of Raymond. “It’s got to make him feel a little bit better that he finally broke through.”

Things tightened back up in the early stages of the third period, as Tim Stützle’s cross-slot feed went to the doorstep where Senators captain Brady Tkachuk tapped it behind Gibson to get it to 4-3 at 6:55.

Detroit would take back-to-back penalties right before the halfway point of final frame, but Rasmussen restored his squad's two-goal lead with a short-handed goal that made it 5-3 at 12:53. The lone assist on Rasmussen's sixth tally of the season was credited to Simon Edvinsson.

“I just tried to get it direct and shoot as hard as I could,” Rasmussen said about his shorty, which was the Red Wings' first since Jan. 23, 2025. “Happy it went in. Good stand there by Simon and the rest of the guys on the blue line."

Of note, the Red Wings finished 5-for-6 on the penalty kill on Monday, improving to 28-for-33 (84.8 percent) on the PK since Dec. 13.

“Some big kills," Rasmussen said. "Didn’t get discouraged when it got close there. I just think it was a resilient game. Everybody was lifting each other up on the bench and got the win.”

NEXT UP: Detroit will wrap up its two-game regular-season series with the Vancouver Canucks at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday night.

WHAT WAS SAID

McLellan on if he considers Monday's win a statement of any kind

“I don’t know if we made a statement to anybody. We needed to recover from the Pittsburgh debacle. We were about as bad as you could be in that game [on Saturday]. Probably our weakest effort of the season, and sometimes those happen. We weren’t going to let it slip.”

Rasmussen on what Monday’s win meant to the group

“Any conference or division game is big. Kind of a tough two games there against Pittsburgh, so really good response. They’re a good team and hard to play against.”

Van Riemsdyk on responding from their recent home-and-home set against the Penguins

“I just liked that we just kept playing the whole game. Obviously, maybe not the best start for us, but we got going, I think, after the challenge on the offside. I thought we just started to play simple and direct, and just played off that.”