Trending: Filppula scores in Red Wings' 4-1 loss to Devils

DETROIT -- For some inexplicable reason, the Red Wings were lethargic in Tuesday night's 4-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils at Little Caesars Arena.
Perhaps it was the post-trade deadline day blues, which had Detroit down in the dumps after seeing two popular teammates, Mike Green and Andreas Athanasiou, moved at the trade deadline to the Edmonton Oilers.

But from the opening face-off, it was apparent the Wings were not themselves.
New Jersey scored at the 1:15 mark of the first period and never looked back.
With the win, the Devils sweep the three-game season series from the Wings and Detroit's record versus the Metropolitan Division falls to 0-19-1.
Valtteri Filppula (power play) had Detroit's lone goal at 9:40 of the third period, but the Wings were already down 3-0 when he scored.
Joey Anderson, Jesper Bratt (power play), Kyle Palmieri (power play) and Nikita Gusev (power play) were the Devils' goal scorers.
Jonathan Bernier (13-20-2) took the loss, stopping 27 of the 31 shots he faced for a save percentage of .871.
Cory Schneider (1-6-1) made the start in goal for the Devils, picking up his first win of the season. Schneider stopped 27 of the 28 shots the Wings fired his way for a .963 save percentage.
At 9:06 of the third period, the game took on a different tone, after Jack Hughes delivered a knee-on-knee hit to Robby Fabbri.
For the remainder of the game, the Wings and Devils amped up the physical play and traded barbs.
Detroit (15-46-4) will play the second game of their current three-game homestand when they welcome the Minnesota Wild to Little Caesars Arena on Thursday night.
New Jersey's (25-27-10) next game will also be on Thursday when they travel out west to face the San Jose Sharks.
1. Robby Fabbri/Tyler Bertuzzi: The final result of what happened late in the third period Tuesday may not be known for a while. At 9:04, Hughes, the former U.S. National Team Development Program star, went right knee to right knee on Fabbri. Fabbri, who dealt with two major left knee issues when he was with the St. Louis Blues, immediately left the game and did not return. Hughes was given a two-minute minor for tripping, a call the Red Wings felt could have been a major. Tempers boiled over with 43.2 seconds left in regulation when Bertuzzi got a big but clean hit on Hughes. Devils forward John Hayden responded with a cross-check to Bertuzzi's face. Bertuzzi went down and P.K. Subban stood over him, which angered Bertuzzi. A brief skirmish ensued with Hayden receiving a five-minute cross-checking major and a 10-minute game misconduct, Subban received a 10-minute misconduct and Bertuzzi also got a 10-minute misconduct. After the game, Wings coach Jeff Blashill said he did not have an update on Fabbri's status. The NHL's Department of Player Safety will likely take another look at the cross-check.

Quotable: "I thought it was a dirty hit. Obviously we're trying to protect our players there. I didn't think it was a great hit, obviously Fabbs with his history of injuries, too, you never like to see that. Yeah, it got chippy towards the end for sure. I'm not sure how Tyler is. Obviously that's anotherwr, I think, dirty play. I think Tyler will be alright. I worry about Fabbs. Those are always scary injuries. Hope both of them are all right but especially Fabbs there. I'm a little nervous." - Justin Abdelkader
Quotable II: "It starts with that pretty cheap check. We didn't like the hit that Fabbs took. Clear that he stuck his leg out, knee on knee. We didn't like that. That's all I'm gonna say. That was a tough one, too. Not that big of a check on Hughes from Bert and Hayden comes in and cross-checks him high. Not a great play, not a play you want to see in our game. To the face. Luckily, Bert's okay and it looks like Fabbs is okay, too. A little shaken up but we got pretty lucky on both those plays that no one was seriously hurt." - Dylan Larkin
Quotable III: "I thought it was a bad hit, there's no reason for it. I thought it was a five, but they called it a two. That's why you call a five originally. They got to make that choice, they got to make it in real time, they decided not to. That's their choice to make. It looked intent to me. It's unfortunate. I think they'll look at both of them. I don't know what they'll do." - Blashill
2. Special teams: While the Red Wings' special teams have not been spectacular this season, both the power play and penalty kill had climbed out of last place. Coming into the game, the power play was ranked 29th at 14.6 percent and the penalty kill was also 29th at 75.3 percent. The Wings got their only goal of the game at 9:40 of the third period when Bertuzzi found Filppula at the right doorstep for a nice tap-in. Larkin got the second assist, extending his point streak to four games, with six points (2-4-6) in that span. It was Filppula's sixth goal of the season and 515th career point. Filppula moved past Jere Lehtinen into sole possession of 10th place in league history in points by a Finnish-born player. It was also Filppula's first power-play goal since Oct. 28, 2017 and his first power-play goal with the Red Wings since April 22, 2013. The Wings finished 1-for-4 with the man-advantage. The penalty kill, on the other hand, had some issues. The first man-advantage goal, Bratt's at 6:04 of the second, came on a rebound. The second was scored by Palmieri at 8:51 of the second when left alone in front of the net to redirect the puck past Bernier. At 13:40 of the third, Gusev was able to get the Devils' third power-play goal, shooting from the mid-slot. New Jersey finished 3-for-5 with the man-advantage.

Quotable: "They had a couple of plays. We kind of saw them coming. We talked about them but they still managed to . . . nothing that they really surprised us with but we just have to execute out there. We've done it so many times this year. Even one PK goal against is sometimes tough. You gotta try to win that battle. We're not and we haven't been doing it all year." - Frans Nielsen
Quotable II: "I didn't get a chance to look back at all the goals. We just gotta make sure that as a penalty kill we're working together as a unit of five out there. We can't give them easy goals, or easy back-door goals. We gotta makes sure we're taking away the middle of the ice as much as possible. I thought we gave them some chances there in the middle. We gotta stay together, even when that happens. You gotta make sure that each kill you take it with the next kill, the next opportunity to go out there. All year we haven't done a good enough job on the specialty teams. I think that's hurt us a lot for sure." - Abdelkader
Quotable III: "It's very disappointing. I don't know for what reason we didn't come out and execute enough in the first and spotted them a goal. We just couldn't find a rhythm on the penalty kill and keep it out of our net. It's disappointing we didn't show up for this one after the two performances we had in New Jersey this year." - Larkin
Quotable IV: "We weren't good enough. We made a couple big mis-reads and it ends up in the net. The first one happens, it's a shot, rebound, it's going to happen. The second one was a chance to clear the puck, we didn't clear the puck. Terrible, terrible read in front. The third one, again, we kill most of the penalty and can't finish it off." - Blashill

3. Cody Goloubef: It was a bit of a challenging situation for someone to come into as a new player. Goloubef, claimed on waivers from the Ottawa Senators on Feb. 21, arrived in Detroit Monday night and found himself in the lineup Tuesday. The young defenseman only had the morning skate to get a little familiarity in with his new teammates. Forward Adam Erne missed the game with an injury so the Wings went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen. Goloubef played 19 shifts for 14:40, had one shot, was tied with Anthony Mantha for the team lead in hits with four, and was even.
   Quotable: "I thought he played fine. Again, I think those are hard situations to go into. In some ways, seven D, you're trying to let him get his feet wet. That's kind of the reason we chose to go that way. Erne was unavailable. We could have called somebody up, but we just thought it was decent chance to get his feet wet, but sometimes it's harder with seven D. We'll get him into a practice tomorrow." - Blashill