For about 59 and a half minutes Tuesday night in St. Louis, the Detroit Red Wings appeared on their way to a well played road hockey game: Moments of absorbing pressure, excellent goaltending from Cam Talbot, and an opportunistic attack to nab a third period lead. However, 29 seconds short of securing two points, Detroit failed to clear, the Blues won battles to keep the puck alive, then Cam Fowler teed up a Jordan Kyrou redirect to tie the game at one, leaving a frustrated Dylan Larkin to rifle the puck off the boards. In overtime, Fowler scored the game-winner to give his team a 2–1 win, robbing the Red Wings of a point they'd thought was theirs moments earlier.
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The result was "brutal," J.T. Compher (who'd scored Detroit's lone goal of the night to take a 1–0 lead five minutes into the third) told reporters after the game. "We played a really good road game for a long time, Talbs played out of his mind, gave us a chance to win, and they were able to squeak one in late and steal that second point from us."
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"That's a really good hockey team playing good hockey at the moment, and we gave ourselves a chance to get two points, and we come up short," Compher added. "No one's beat 'em in eight or nine games, and we gave ourselves a really good chance tonight."
The sting of the loss is compounded by the fact that both the Montreal Canadiens and Columbus Blue Jackets won Tuesday night, leaving the Wings four points to the wrong side of the playoff cutline with eight games left in the regular season.
"We know what's at stake, and it's not the fact that we gave up a point to an opponent," said coach Todd McLellan after the game. "It's just we didn't get the point, and I thought after starting slow on the night, Talbs kept us in it, and then we worked our way back in, checked fairly well...put ourselves in a situation to win and with about 3:40 left we iced the puck...and out comes the goalie and we just couldn't find a way to hit the open net at the other end or just finish the night."
Per McLellan, Tuesday's loss leaves Detroit with a choice that isn't really a choice: "We can either feel sorry for ourselves, which I don't think is a great option, or we can get back after it, and we have no choice."
The Red Wings host the Carolina Hurricanes Friday evening then the Florida Panthers Sunday in two games unlikely to lift them back into a playoff spot on their own, but certainly with the potential to all but eliminate them.
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