Postgame: Red Wings @ Blue Jackets – 2/2

I’m not going to do a formal write-up of tonight’s game. Playing the “they didn’t look like they were putting in any effort so why should I?” card for the first time this season.

I think Detroit’s 4-2 loss to Columbus tonight can be summed up by Artem Anisimov’s first goal.

Niklas Kronwall gets to the puck in the Red Wings’ zone and, feeling the pressure coming, makes a blind pass behind him that gets picked off by Anisimov. Anisimov carries it in and stops, at which point Jonathan Ericsson blows right past him. Anisimov fires a nice shot over the shoulder of Jimmy Howard, who was already down and holding the post.

If Kronwall doesn’t throw the puck away, that goal doesn’t happen. If Ericsson doesn’t blow past Anisimov, that goal doesn’t happen. If Howard doesn’t go down early, that goal doesn’t happen.

It required three stupid mistakes (and one great shot) combined for that play to result in a Columbus goal. And that’s exactly how the Wings played all night. If there was a mistake to be made, they made it.

Okay, that’s a little bit of hyperbole, but not much. Howard made some great stops and the goals by Johan Franzen and Damien Brunner were the result of solid effort. They were not representative of the game as a whole, however.

On top of that, you have the shoulder injury to Brendan Smith, which Mike Babcock says is expected to shelve one of the team’s top-four defenders for up to two weeks. We’ll have to wait until test results on Monday to see what happens there.

I’ve said it before, but I hope the Wings don’t just forget about tonight like it never happened. They need to learn from games like this one to make sure they don’t form bad habits based on them. Something else well have to wait to see what happens with.