Detroit Red Wings Weekly: Jonatan Berggren Has Arrived!

Welcome back to Red Wings Weekly! In this weekly column, we like to take a look at the Red Wings’ most-recent week of play, identify any players and/or trends that stood out, and then look ahead and find out what the next week may have in store for the team from Hockeytown. As always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section down below.

This week the Detroit Red Wings took a trip through California, a once daunting road trip in the days of Ryan Getzlaf, Joe Thornton, and Drew Doughty’s primes that now features two of the leagues worst teams and a team hopeful to prove that last year’s playoff berth was not a fluke. 

Expectations were high for Detroit to snag at least earn four points in these three games, with a chance at stealing five or six if they were lucky. So how did the road trip go? Well, it only took nine seconds for fans’ expectations to be re-considered so let’s get into the games. 

Early Goal Spells Doom in Los Angeles

11/12 at Los Angeles Kings, 4-3 Loss

Allowing the first goal of the game is bad. Allowing the first goal of the game in the first five minutes is worse. Allowing the first goal of the game nine seconds in on the game’s first shot is unacceptable. The main culprit in my eyes is Filip Hronek who completely abandoned his post just 3 seconds into the game, deciding to . . . no that can’t be right . . . he decided to pinch in to the opposing team’s blue line to support the forecheck that wasn’t there.

He left poor Olli Määttä all on his own to defend a two-on-one with Michael Rasmussen trying (and failing) to catch up. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a Hronek hit piece. He’s been better than expected this year and it’s not only his fault, this was just not the move to start the game. 

Detroit also didn’t only lose because of this goal, they only managed 10 total shots in the first 40 minutes and allowed 17 shots against. Alex Nedeljkovic bounced back a bit after allowing the ultra-early goal, but not well enough, allowing four goals in the first 34 minutes of the game. He was perfect from then on, but the deficit was a bit too large for the Red Wings to dig out of, despite the full support of the power play (two goals on four power play opportunities) and a payback goal by Hronek who launched a slapshot past Kings goalie Cal Peterson (thanks to a great screen by Kings defender Alex Edler). 

It ultimately wasn’t enough, but the turnaround…