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Continually Getting Struck By Lightning |
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The Detroit Red Wings continue to defy the laws of Mother Nature.
Supposedly, allegedly, we are told from a young age that lightning never strikes the same place twice.
Good luck convincing the Red Wings of that. When it comes to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the bolts just keep on striking. At home. On the road.
Everywhere.
“The results have been bad from the win-loss standpoint without question,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill told Mlive.com.
Yes they have.
Overall, Tampa Bay has won 10 in a row over the Wings, including all three meetings this season. As they clash Thursday at Tampa Bay’s Amalie Arena, the news doesn’t get any better from a Detroit point of view. The Wings have also lost 10 straight in Tampa.
Who owns the Wings? The Ilitches?
Yeah, that would be true.
The Lightning? Yeah, just about every one of them. The Lightning’s 10 wins in a row in the regular season overall against the Red Wings is their longest active win streak versus any team and fourth-longest win streak versus any opponent all-time.
Consider these numbers from the Tampa Bay side of the ledger: Forward Tyler Johnson has points in eight of his last nine regular-season games versus Detroit. Forward Cedric Paquette has more goals (four) and points (five) against Detroit than any other NHL team and recorded his only career hat trick Jan. 29, 2015 while facing the Wings.
NHL scoring leader Nikita Kucherov has more regular season goals (11) against the Red Wings than any other NHL team and has recorded points (7-3-10) in five-straight games versus Detroit. He has posted 4-1-5 numbers in the three games this season. Forwards Yanni Gourde (2-2-4) and Steven Stamkos (1-3-4) have also feasted on Red Wing this season. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy has never lost in his career against Detroit, going 5-0-0 with a 1.86 goals-against average and .940 save percentage.
Faced with such imposing digits, Blashill seeks to put earrings on this pig.
“I actually think there’s been lots of moments we’ve played really, really well against them but we’ve got to find a way to win,” Blashill said. “We’ve got to take the things that we’ve done well and we’ve got to eliminate the areas where they’ve exploited us.
I thought the first period the last time we played them here, they took advantage of us on their rush offense and their O-zone offense a little bit, and I thought the rest of the game we played well. They’re going to create chances. I watched them against Toronto the other night, they can create tons of chances. So we’ve got to try to get them on their heels and make them defend as much as possible.
“When they have the puck, they’re a real good team.”
When they have the Wings sitting on the other team’s bench, the Lightning are even better.
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