Postgame: Canadiens @ Red Wings – 3/27

I ranted a lot about officiating and breaks during the game on Twitter but let’s be real here, Detroit’s 5-4 loss to the Montreal Canadiens tonight was deserved.

They shot themselves in the foot enough that a Montreal goal on an offsides play just seems like piling on. Especially since the Kid Line almost did enough to make up for all those stupid mistakes. For a brief period of time, Tomas Tatar put this team on his back and said “I got this.”

Overall, though, if you were in red and your name wasn’t Tatar, Nyquist, Sheahan, Jurco or Howard, you didn’t do enough tonight. And that includes goal-scorer Johan Franzen, because one shot doesn’t make up for the rest of the game.

Yeah, I include Howard on the plus side. Not often you can allow five and not send any blame to the goalie but every Montreal goal was screened, deflected, off a bad giveaway, or some combination of the three. As an elite goalie you want to stop more but I don’t think there are any of those he specifically wants back.

Going by projections, the Red Wings can only lose two more games this year if they want to make the playoffs. I’m not feeling positive.