DETROIT — If you needed a refresher on how fast narratives can shift in the NHL, look no further than Little Caesars Arena over the last three days.
Thursday night, the Detroit Red Wings left their season opener looking messy on defense and in goal. Their Game 1 starter, Ville Husso, got chased in the second period. Their defense blew too many coverages. No one left happy after a 6-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Just 48 hours later, though? Cam Talbot was out for a postgame skate in the spotlight Saturday night, fresh off a 42-save shutout in a 3-0 win over the Nashville Predators in his first start with the Red Wings.
“I would take that performance anytime,” Talbot said.
So, for a Red Wings team whose goaltending situation has been the subject of so much debate, what kind of statement did Talbot make? Here are three takeaways.
Talbot’s statement performance
The Red Wings played with far more urgency Saturday than they did for the last two periods of Thursday’s loss. That was noticeable all night.
But up against a tough Nashville team — one that made some big-time splashes this offseason — they needed it. The Predators hammered shots all night, outshooting the Red Wings by nearly double, 42-22. Between three penalties, a long six-on-five late in the game, and the expected push that comes from nearly all trailing teams in the NHL, it was clear that the Red Wings were going to need to lean heavily on Talbot.
“He needed to be great,” head coach Derek Lalonde said. “And he was.”
TONIGHT’S NUMBER ONE STAR ⭐️ pic.twitter.com/HJdEnEHOAg
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) October 13, 2024
Now, there may be an impulse to proclaim Talbot the Red Wings’ No. 1 goaltender after a showing like that, especially after a rocky outing from Husso two days earlier — and it may well get to that point.
But the reality is the Red Wings goaltending situation is likely to be an evolving dynamic for at least a while yet, as Detroit will surely want to get multiple looks at both, plus Alex Lyon, in the early going.
Still, I do think Talbot made a different kind of statement Saturday night. From the moment he signed in Detroit, many — including me — have questioned whether he would be able to turn in the same kind of numbers in Detroit as he did behind a very sound defensive team in Los Angeles.
And while the Red Wings were better in front of him Saturday than they were Thursday — blocking 31 shots and not giving up many odd-man situations — all that volume and zone time still adds up. The quality Nashville generated amounted to 4.68 expected goals, according to Evolving Hockey. He didn’t surrender a single one.
“I think if you can manage your game in front of him where you’re not making him move laterally, you’re seeing pucks, he’s going to give you a pretty solid effort,” Lalonde said. “I thought that was the case tonight. He made a couple of spectacular saves moving East-West. … He instilled a confidence in our group throughout.”
As for the state of the goaltending situation big-picture? What’s next may be most telling: The Red Wings’ next two games are against the defending Presidents’ Trophy winners, the New York Rangers, with two days between games. Who Lalonde puts in net for those two games should be a revealing look into how he sees the crease.
A bounce back for Justin Holl
With Jeff Petry out due to an upper-body injury, Holl — who had been waived and sent down to Grand Rapids to begin the season — came right back up and slotted into the top four.
Even after being waived, Holl had to feel like he would get a chance at some point this season, just probably not quite so early. But he ran with it.
Holl and Simon Edvinsson didn’t get the same difficulty of minutes as Moritz Seider and Ben Chiarot, but they still saw a healthy dose of the Predators’ loaded top six, which features Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, Filip Forsberg and Ryan O’Reilly. And they did well to limit those key players.
It had to feel good for Holl, who after playing a significant role for the Maple Leafs from 2019 through 2023 was routinely scratched last season in his first year in Detroit, before the outright demotion to begin this season.
“Really good,” Lalonde said. “Defended. And we need some simple defense, and that’s what he is. He’s a simple defender, he wins battles, he’s big, he’s hard to play against. He did a really good job for us.”
And his partner, Edvinsson, had a little bit of redemption as well after a few tough moments Thursday night. You can probably chalk those up to some overeagerness from the 21-year-old defenseman playing his first full season. Either way, he handled himself quite well Saturday and earned an assist with a nice play at the blue line to set up Lucas Raymond, before Raymond found Andrew Copp at the back door for a big goal to go up 2-0 in the third period.
Petry has been considered day to day, so we’ll see whether he’s good to go for Monday in New York. But Holl’s performance may have at least given the Red Wings something to think about.
And one more defensive performance of note, while we’re at it: Albert Johansson made his NHL debut Saturday night, coming into the lineup for Erik Gustafsson. It wasn’t a loud night for Johansson, who played 11:57, but he didn’t give much up and finished with the highest expected goals share (66.19 percent) of any Red Wings defenseman, according to Natural Stat Trick.
“Made some really simple, nice plays with the puck, was good defending,” Copp said. “As a forward, when you don’t notice a ‘D’ it’s probably a good thing. He was good back there, for sure.”
“He can move a puck, he’s got good hockey sense, he plays on his toes,” Lalonde added. “For the most part didn’t get himself in any bad situations. Playing against size is going to be a challenge for him in this league, and there’s not many (opponents) bigger than (Nashville) as a team, and he did a really good job with it. So that’s a really good first game for him, and a good sign for us.”
Goals around the net
The Red Wings had three goals, one of them a late empty-netter by Dylan Larkin. But their first two shared a little bit of a theme that I’m going to be tracking closely this season: goals at the net.
Last season, as the games got tighter, the run-and-gun style offense the Red Wings relied on for much of the season got a lot tougher to come by. And while Detroit’s forward corps is still of a similar composition — with small, skilled players dominating their top six — I’ll be curious to see if they’re able to consistently generate some so-called dirty goals near the net this time around.
All goals count the same, of course, and you need to be able to score “easy” sometimes too. But an overreliance on flashy, transition offense doesn’t translate as well to hard opponents — such as Nashville — and I don’t think it’s a coincidence the Red Wings’ two even-strength goals came right around the net.
The first was a classic redirect by J.T. Compher off a Chiarot point shot, and a puck that changed direction too fast for any goalie — even the great Juuse Saros — to have a chance at. The second was a little prettier setup, with Raymond firing a backdoor feed to Copp, but nonetheless was mainly a product of being in the right place, right around the net.
The Red Wings had a few looks at some prettier goals, and I’m sure those will go in for them in the future. But having a baseline of some repeatable, around-the-net goals is something Detroit would be wise to develop early this season.
(Photo of Cam Talbot’s first-period deflection of a shot by Ryan O’Reilly: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
