The Detroit Red Wings enjoyed a banner day with one of their top players, Alex DeBrincat, signed to a seven-year, $91 million extension – but what would really help their standing is more celebrations at the end of games.
The Wings, 1-3-2 after six games, take on the winless Philadelphia Flyers (0-5-2) on Thursday, Oct. 15 (7:30 p.m., HULU, ESPN+) in a battle of teams hovering at the bottom of the NHL's Eastern Conference. Daniil Tarasov is scheduled to get the start in net, his first at Little Caesars Arena and second of the season. Changes are afoot up front, where three of the four lines have undergone alterations ahead of meeting the Flyers.
Most notably, Dylan Larkin's line with Viktor Arvidsson and Lucas Raymond no longer has Raymond on it,
but Nate Danielson instead.
"Right now, it's not quite working for them," coach Todd McLellan said. "They haven't been horrible. They haven't been hurting us. They just haven't been producing. So we'll give them a different look."
Danielson has one assist in five games, and was a healthy scratch last game.
Raymond, who has four assists an no goals in six games, dropped onto the third line, next to Andrew Copp and Michael Rasmussen.
"I want to score," Raymond said. "I want to get to those areas and get going. I think I'm getting the looks. I just need to maybe shoot a bit more, get to those areas a bit more and hopefully it'll go in."
The only line that stayed intact was Emmitt Finnie's with Alex DeBrincat and Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, which combined for four goals and three assists in Tuesday's 5-4 overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils.
Keegan Kolesar, who had been on the third line, skated with J.T. Compher and Sheldon Dries, with Carter Mazur also subbing in.
Compher (who is close to returning) and Marco Kasper and Mason Appleton (both week-to-week) all have been out since at least the second game of the season (Kasper since the first game), which has led to using 11 forwards and seven defensemen formations in four games. But that makes it tricky to distribute minutes and in the game against the Devils, Mazur wasn't used at all in the third period, and Kolesar only once.
The Wings have played well in stretches, but have yet to show themselves capable of a complete game. They started well against the Seattle Kraken only to implode in the second period; looked asleep the first period against the Devils; their power play has clicked and then hasn't, and their penalty kill has been inconsistent, too. So here they are, two weeks in, with one victory and four points.
"We have to play better to win, there's no doubt about it," McLellan said. "I didn't like a lot of our game [against the Devils]. Players didn't either. We dealt with it. We tried to fix it.
"We've been in games that we haven't been able to win. Last year, up until the Olympic break, I think we only lost four, if I remember correctly, four one-goal shootout/overtime games. We're already at the back end of that twice now in a week. In some of those games, we scored enough goals. We scored enough against Seattle, and we scored enough last night. It was the defensive miscues that cost us. We've seen our team play really solid defensively, and then sometimes it gets away from us. That tells me we've a lot of work to do, and find a level ground."
Contact Helene St. James at Hstjames@freepress.com. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Red Wings move Lucas Raymond to third line, looking for spark
