The Detroit Red Wings surrendered a seemingly safe lead late in Game 4 of their series with the Tampa Bay Lightning Thursday.
Saturday night the Wings replied with a convincing if not deflating, 4-0 win over the Bolts in Tampa.
Petr Mrazek made 28 saves in his second shutout of the series and gave the Red Wings every opportunity to put their foot on the neck of the Lightning heading back to Detroit for Game 6.
“We have been playing well, we played well in Game 3 and Game 4 outside of the last five minutes,” Red Wings forward Henrik Zetterberg said. “We didn’t need to change much. But it’s a tight series and there haven’t been a lot of chances each way. Now we have to continue to play our game and try to finish it out.”
Drew Miller, Riley Sheahan, Pavel Datsyuk, and Danny DeKeyser scored for the Red Wings.
“Last game something happened that we weren’t very proud of,” Miller said. “We wanted to come out and play the right way, we got a lead and we tightened up. The big thing is taking away their speed from the neutral zone. They like to come flying through the neutral zone, so I think cutting them off and making them work a little harder to get into the zone and create offense.”
Detroit had control of the game from the outset and where they had minor lapses Mrazek was there to make sure the Lightning did not score.
“I’m working hard and competing but it’s just not going my way,” Tampa’s Steve Stamkos said. “I have to do better. No one said it was going to be easy. We need to find a way to do what we did last time at their rink and bring it back here. There’s nothing else to do but work hard and try to win.”
Now the key for Detroit is not having a let down on their home ice and allowing Tampa back in the series.
“We have to continue to play hard and give their guys as few touches as possible,” Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. “No team has been able to win two games in a row in this series. We have to get our mind right and keep getting better. We feel good as a team right now and are looking forward to going home.”
Ben Bishop made 26 saves in the loss.
“It’s been frustrating not to score, especially for a team that’s used to scoring,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “If you take the overtime out of this we haven’t scored in eight of the last nine periods. And when the object is to score, it’s tough to win without scoring.”
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