Red Wings search for offense ahead of clash with Ducks (Dec 17, 2016)
DETROIT -- The Detroit Red Wings are struggling to score goals but they don't plan to sacrifice defense in order to create more offense.
The Red Wings (13-14-4) host the Anaheim Ducks (16-10-5) Saturday at 7 p.m. at Joe Louis Arena.
Detroit has scored three goals during their four-game winless streak -- all at home -- (0-3-1). It ranks second-to-last in the NHL in goals per game (2.19), shots per game (28.1) and the power play (13.3 percent).
"The best offense comes from good defense," Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill told www.mlive.com. "I think the biggest thing is you have to be fast out of your zone, you have to be fast in the D-zone to make sure you're spending enough time (in the offensive zone). Then it comes down to winning battles.
"We want to create lots of rushes. We've been a pretty good rush team. That's how you open it up. We'd like to create lots of chances without giving up any rushes. I don't think the answer is to start giving up lots of chances. The answer is to continue to limit chances, but bear down a little more offensively."
Captain Henrik Zetterberg doesn't think it is time to start taking risks.
"I don't think you want to change the way you play in the neutral zone or in your own end," he said. "I think we just have to find ways, again, to get more pucks on net and that comes down to us forwards, it comes down to our defensemen."
Several players are in goal-scoring slumps. Gustav Nyquist has one goal in his past 25 games. He and Tomas Tatar have scored just four goals each. Riley Sheahan has no goals in 31 games.
The Ducks have won seven of their last 10, including a 4-3 win at the Boston Bruins on Thursday night, despite giving up two goals in 13 seconds in the first period.
That put Anaheim down 2-0, 13 minutes into the game and Ducks Randy Carlyle called a timeout.
To me, I think I've been negligent in a couple (prior) situations," Carlyle told the Los Angeles Daily News. "Two goals in 13 seconds -- hey, we have to settle this thing down. That's all we tried to do.
"Just stop, guys. Stop what's going on. Reset ourselves. Go back into what we do. Do our thing."
Rickard Rakell scored the tiebreaking and game-winning goal early in the second period and Andrew Cogliano, Kevin Bieksa and Josh Manson also scored. Jonathan Bernier made 31 saves.
Anaheim captain Ryan Getzlaf would not divulge what Carlyle said during the timeout.
"It's a secret," Getzlaf said. "I can't say. Can't tell. It's the same thing every coach does. It's a matter of calming down and playing our game. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel out there. We just weren't playing up to our caliber.
"You can stop the momentum a little bit and our guys did a good job responding."
