In Detroit, the Red Wings have had defensive struggles this season, but those issues really came to the fore on Tuesday night, when the Arizona Coyotes hit for a 9-2 win.
Nick Schmaltz hit for a double and four points in the win, he has 11 points in his last two games.
“This is what we are capable of doing when we play hard away from the puck,” Schmaltz said. “We create turnovers and we’ve got a pretty good fast-break offense. Obviously, we had some great looks that way again tonight.”
Karel Vejmelka made 26 saves in the Arizona win.
“Sometimes you play really well, get a lot of chances and the puck cannot find the back of the net,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “Other times, the puck bounces in off your stick. This has been a very fortunate situation, but we have momentum. We know we can score, and our top guys are doing really well.”
Robby Fabbri and Jakub Vrana were the Detroit goal scorers.
“When we’ve had good stretches, our battle and compete levels have been off the charts,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “In this last stretch, they have been very, very pedestrian, and worse than that at certain points.”
The Red Wings dropped to 24-27-6.
“Everything went wrong tonight, and they just kept putting the puck in the net,” the Red Wings’ Dylan Larkin said. “It feels like we’ve lost all of our confidence, and if we don’t get it back, it is going to be a miserable six weeks until the end of the season.”
Arizona moved to 17-35-4.
“[Schmaltz] is a low-profile guy who doesn’t make a lot of noise, but he cares a lot,” Tourigny said. “He had a slow start to the season, and he was really worried about it. Now look at him. He’s rolling and it is a good example to everyone on the team.”
Nick Ritchie and Jakob Chychrun hit for a pair of goals each in the win.
Clayton Keller added a single marker for the Coyotes.
Travis Boyd and Christian Fischer also scored for Arizona.
Alex Nedeljkovic got the start for Detroit and yielded four goals and made eight saves, before getting the hook in the middle frame.
Thomas Greiss surrendered two goals and made one save before getting his own hook.
Nedeljkovic iced the remainder of the game and made a total of 20 saves.
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