The Detroit Red Wings are red hot.
A six-game winning streak has Detroit at the top of the Eastern Conference wild-card race heading into a meeting with the host Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night.
“That’s awesome,” Detroit forward Patrick Kane said of the Red Wings’ place in the standings following a 3-2 overtime win against the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday night. “I knew we were one point out coming in, so — big win. It wasn’t the prettiest, but huge win for the team. We’re finding ways to win right now.”
If Detroit can take care of the Kraken on Tuesday, it will complete a sweep of a four-game road trip that began with a 3-2 shootout victory over the Edmonton Oilers last Thursday. The Red Wings then defeated the Calgary Flames 3-1 on Saturday before Alex DeBrincat scored twice and goaltender Alex Lyon made 25 saves to lead the way versus Vancouver.
DeBrincat had the game-winning goal at 4:18 of the extra session.
“We’re feeling good,” said DeBrincat, who has 23 goals on the season to match captain Dylan Larkin for the team lead. “We’re able to win games that maybe isn’t our best performance.”
The Red Wings, who once looked like a team that wouldn’t have to worry about the playoffs, have gone 14-4-1 since Todd McLellan replaced Derek Lalonde as coach on Dec. 26.
McLellan said that he was especially pleased that his players posted back-to-back wins on the road on consecutive nights.
“I give the guys a lot of credit for showing some character,” McLellan said. “As (assistant coach) Trent Yawney says, sometimes the art has to hang in the basement. It wasn’t real pretty, but we found a way to scrap out a game that we didn’t win on our first four-game road trip, back-to-back. So credit to them. Let’s get some rest now, it’s really important.”
The Kraken are coming off a disheartening 3-2 loss to visiting Calgary on Sunday that dropped them 10 points behind the Flames in the chase for the second and final Western Conference wild-card spot.
Seattle appeared to take the lead in the first period, only to have a video review disallow the goal due to goaltender interference.
Trailing 1-0, the Kraken allowed a goal on a delayed penalty call. They challenged for goalie interference on their end, but the play stood. The Flames scored on the ensuing two-man advantage to take a three-goal lead, and Seattle never caught up.
“I think from going up 1-0 to down 3-0 with goalie interference calls, the power play, the five-on-three that ensued for three minutes, I think a lot of events in that period were not how we wanted them to go,” Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said.
Kaapo Kakko and Brandon Tanev scored for Seattle, and Kakko is hoping that the Kraken can apply some more offensive pressure on Tuesday.
“(It was) a hard first 20 (minutes),” Kakko said. “I think we battled after that. It’s pretty close in the end. We got some chances, but it’s not enough.”
