"Sometimes It's Easier to Be the Hunter than the Hunted": Detroit Looks to Keep Hunting vs. Panthers
"Sometimes It's Easier to Be the Hunter than the Hunted": Detroit Looks to Keep Hunting vs. Panthers
Jan 16, 2025; Sunrise, Florida, USA; Detroit Red Wings goaltender Cam Talbot (39) makes a save after a deflection from Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov (16) during the second period at Amerant Bank Arena. (Sam Navarro, Imagn Images)
DETROIT—Sunday night at Little Caesars Arena, the Detroit Red Wings host the Florida Panthers, looking to build on the success of Friday night's win over Carolina and keep pace in the desperate chase for the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. The Canadiens beat the Philadelphia Flyers last night in Montreal, setting the current playoff cutline at 83 points with 76 games played. The Red Wings have played 75 and earned 77 points. Two points Sunday evening would do wonders for Detroit's playoff chances, heading into Tuesday night's matchup in Montreal.
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"You play all year to get near the finish line, and when you're close, you're really excited about hunting somebody down," said coach Todd McLellan after Saturday afternoon's practice. "Sometimes it's easier to be the hunter than the hunted. We'd like to change that though, as years go on, but right now we're the hunter, and
"Three weeks ago, we talked about running a marathon, and we're nearing the finish line, and we don't have to catch the individual that's going to end up first," he continued, mixing metaphors. "We just have to catch the runner in front of us."
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In beating the Hurricanes Friday, the Red Wings took advantage of a Carolina lineup without two key contributors: Andrei Svechnikov and Jordan Staal. The Panthers arrive in Detroit as the defending Stanley Cup champions, but they two are without two central figures from that Cup-winning team with both Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov unavailable due to injury. Florida also skates into the evening's game as the second half of a back-to-back, having lost 3–0 Saturday night in Ottawa.
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Teams like the Hurricanes and Panthers—already secure in their playoff berths—aren't living in the same world as the desperate Red Wings. As McLellan pointed out Saturday, "Take the team we played last night. If they were in our situation and they were desperate, I don't know if Staal or Svechnikov would've played or not. I don't know their teams, but the ones that are in, that have the little x by their name, they have the luxury of deciding how to manage their lineup, so they're getting ready. We don't have that luxury. You're banged up, you're hurt, you're sore, you play. That's just the way it is, and there's nothing wrong with that, because if you can get in, you're already playing that type of hockey going into game one."
Against Florida, McLellan will be asking Cam Talbot to make his fifth straight start. As to Talbot's workload down the stretch, the coach said, "It'll be awfully hard for one goaltender to play all that way, but we're only worrying about tomorrow."
Talbot himself pointed out that Carolina and Florida share more than just playoff safety, they also share some traits when it comes to their style of creating offense.
"They throw a lot of pucks on net, they've got good net-front presence, they've got a lot of shooters in the lineup, and they get a lot of pucks to the net from the point, so we're gonna have to do a good job like we did last night boxing out, let me have sight lines, and obviously coming up with some big blocks when we need to," Talbot said of the Panthers.
Detroit will look keep hunting Sunday night at 5:30 in a nationally televised game on TNT.
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