Red Wings Postgame: ‘Breathing Through Your Eyelids’

  Defensive pair Simon Edvinsson and Albert Johansson were at their best and worst simultaneously at the end of the second period when the Detroit Red Wings were hemmed in their own zone for more than four minutes.

The Red Wings couldn’t get the puck out of their zone. As they grew more weary, the situation became more urgent. Usually in that situation, the puck ends up in the back of the net. But Edvinsson and Johansson were credited with a shift of 4:25 with no goal scored against. The average shift for a defenseman should be in the 45- to 50-second range.

“In the end you’re just breathing through your eyelids to be honest,” Detroit defenseman Mo Seider said about the lengthy shift.

On one hand, the Red Wings didn’t manage the situation well. It’s not what you want to see happen when a team is fighting for a playoff spot. They needed the goalie to get a whistle or forwards to manage the situation to get their defensemen off the ice. Neither happened.

On the other hand, Edvinsson and Johansson didn’t make mistakes that would have made it worse.

“So that’s a very unfortunate set of circumstances for those two young kids, but they handled it well,” Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. “They went to the middle of the rink and stayed there.”

Four-minute Fallout

Seider said when a defenseman gets caught like that all he can do is “just try to absorb everything.”

“Try to stay compact and in front of the net and let the goalie see as much as possible,” Seider said. “But then just, I don’t know, just try to use your last percent of energy just to really defend well around your net. I think the boys did a great job of blocking shots. Being in the lanes. I think Albert blocked probably two or three shots and (Edvinsson) had another one there and they just kept them to the outside.”

McLellan pointed out that over those four minutes, the Red Wings changed forwards twice. “Which means there were fresh forwards on the ice and we did have the puck,” he said. “There are times where you have to execute just to manage two or three players that can’t breathe and we didn’t do that. As a result, we got hemmed in.”

McLellan said the second part of the problem when players are trapped on the ice too long is “there’s guys trapped on the bench that long too.”

As a result of that long shift,  McLellan said Seider and Chiarot weren’t on the ice for six and a half minutes.

Soderblom Promotion.

Elmer Soderblom’s slick goal adds more evidence that he is rooted on the Detroit roster. McLellan even moved him up to the top line with Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond. Soderblom has seven points (3-4-7) in 12 games since Jan. 27 vs. Los Angeles.

“The staff didn’t like how we were down the middle,” McLellan said. “Just we didn’t win any faceoffs at all and we were slow there and that really hurt us. So we put Elmer up and put (Marco Kasper) in
the middle (on another line). It’s his position. We thought we’d try him there. ”

Ice Chips

The Red Wings are out of a playoff spot for the first time since Feb. 1…  The Red Wings delivered 33 hits, their second-most total in a game this season (34 on Dec. 27 vs. Toronto). Seider
showed seven hits, while Joe Veleno added six hits