Resilient Red Wings Find Way to Win

The Detroit Red Wings wre riding a roller coaster of emotions Monday on Long Island. But when all was said and done at the end of this up and down journey, the outcome would bring about a whirlwind of excitement.

Detroit rallied from a third-period deficit, blew a third-period lead and then were overtime winners when Lucas Raymond converted a J.T. Compher feed for a 4-3 victory over the New York Islanders at UBS Arena.

EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND! #LGRW pic.twitter.com/WTQBGPoW3U

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) October 31, 2023

It certainly wasn’t the textbook blueprint for a path to victory, but who’s going to argue with success?

Not Raymond.

“I think we put together 60 good minutes,” Raymond told Bally Sports Detroit’s Trevor Thompson. “We had not really got the bounces but we’ll take any win in any way, shape, or form.”

Detroit Ends Slide

Mired in an 0-2-1 skid, Detroit had scored just two goals over the past two games, successive 4-1 losses to the Winnipeg Jets and Boston Bruins. The Red Wings were goalless through the first 40 minutes of play on Monday.

Facing a Vezina Trophy winner in Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin and down two goals with less than a period to play, to say things were looking bleak for the Red Wings would be the ultimate understatement.

“The tough thing was I liked our first 40 minutes but then we find ourselves down two goals on the road against a team like that, who defends extremely well, on a goalie that didn’t look like he was going to give up much,” Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said.

However, this game would prove to be the epitome of what Lalonde is always preaching.

Sticking with the process.

“You could kind of feel it,” Red Wings defenseman Jake Walman said. “We were putting a full game together there, it just hadn’t come our way.”

This is just beautiful. 🤌 #LGRW pic.twitter.com/4VsuuxOaFr

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) October 31, 2023

When it finally did, there was an avalanche of Detroit goals. Daniel Sprong and Walman would score 1:40 apart. Compher’s tally giving the Red Wings their first lead in four games came 2:08 later.

“The message was still the same,” Walman said. “We never got down on each other. We just knew we were playing a good game and eventually it would go in. We kept pounding at it and it worked out.”

Red Wings Display Resiliency

There would be one more bump in the road to overcome before the achievement of victory would arrive. Red Wings forward David Perron took an unnecessary tripping penalty, leading to a tying power-play goal by Bo Horvat.

Horvat would go from hero to goat in overtime, though. Pouncing on Horvat’s turnover in the offensive zone, Raymond and Compher played give and go, leading to an empty-net one timer for Raymond’s game winner.

If not for that third period and overtime, we could be having a much different conversation right now. This is not a Red Wings team with a reservoir of confidence and history of success to draw upon. A fourth successive setback, especially one in which the club again wasn’t scoring, could’ve proven extremely damaging to their overall psyche.

“It’s pretty easy getting down 2-0 to hang your head,” Walman said. “I’m proud of the guys for battling through it, sticking to the game plan. It didn’t faze us.”

That they were able to rally twice in the same game should also serve the Red Wings well in the long run.

“Two bounce backs there,” Lalonde said. “Being down 2-0 and finding a way and then responding from giving up the goal late. Really good sign. We’ll tap back into that one.

“At 2-0 against this team, against that goalie, the Islanders aren’t going to lose many of those type of games. So, it was good for our group to find a way.”