RECAP: Red Wings finish four-game road trip with 5-4 OT loss to Sharks

SAN JOSE -- The Detroit Red Wings ended their four-game road trip with a back-and-forth 5-4 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center on Monday night.

Goalie Cam Talbot made 29 saves for the Red Wings (7-9-2; 16 points), who earned a point and are heading back to Detroit after a 1-2-1 trip. Netminder Mackenzie Blackwood finished with 16 saves for the Sharks (6-10-4; 16 points), who will visit Little Caesars Arena for the finale of the season series on Jan. 14.

“I give our guys some credit to hang in there,” Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde said. “[Talbot] made some key saves there in the third [period], when momentum was going downhill for them. Got that goal late to give us a point.”

Lighting the lamp for the team-leading 11th time this season, captain Dylan Larkin got the Red Wings on the board first when he finished a backhand shot in front after a quick pass from Simon Edvinsson to make it 1-0 at 7:28 of the first period.

William Eklund’s power-play goal tied it 1-1 at 10:28 of the first period. Talbot stopped Alexander Wennberg’s initial shot, but Eklund snuck the rebound through for the equalizer.

Detroit regained the lead on the power play just before the first intermission when Marco Kasper cleaned up a rebound from the edge of the right face-off circle after a point shot by Eric Gustafsson, making it 2-1 at 18:48 of the opening frame. Vladimir Tarasenko recorded the secondary assist on Kasper’s second career NHL goal.

“First period, we were good,” Larkin said. “We had a shot scramble and got some o-zone time, but it faded again. Didn’t sustain it for 60 minutes, and they did.”

Evening the score for San Jose, Eklund fired a shot from the left face-off circle that popped out of Talbot’s glove and into the back of the net to make it 2-2 at 5:59 of the second period.

“He’s been a rock all year,” Lalonde said about Talbot. “Obviously a couple he definitely wants back, especially the second one when we were pushing too.”

Good forechecking led to the Red Wings’ third goal at 8:11 of the second period. Michael Rasmussen poked the puck off Wennberg’s stick, then it bounced off Henry Thrun’s skate and trickled through Blackwood to put the visitors back ahead 3-2. It was also Rasmussen’s third goal of the season.

Tyler Toffoli knotted it up 3-3 with 42 seconds left in the second period, scoring a one-timer from the slot. Then at 6:19 of the third, Luke Kunin gave the Sharks a 4-3 lead when he wristed one in from the right face-off circle.

“The end-of-the-second-period goal, that was a back breaker,” Lalonde said. “I actually liked our second period. Felt like we could have taken the lead into the third, and just had a bad track goal. Unfortunately it was the same type of goal in the third.”

Helping send the game to overtime, Alex DeBrincat saw his initial shot stopped by a diving Mario Ferraro but he stayed with it and scored a power-play goal to tie it 3-3 at 17:54 of the third period. Lucas Raymond and Larkin picked up the assists on DeBrincat’s eighth goal of the season.

Forty-six seconds into the extra frame, Macklin Celebrini, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft, got a pass from Mikael Granlund before sending a wrister in on Talbot’s glove side for the game-winning goal.

The Red Wings will pack their bags and fly home on Tuesday and, according to Larkin, all they can do “right now is try to pick ourselves back up.”

“It’s always hard going home after the West,” Larkin said. “We got a quick turnaround and an opportunity to be really good at home here through Christmas.”

NEXT UP: The Red Wings will host the New York Islanders for Pavel Datsyuk Hockey Hall of Fame Night at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will receive a Datsyuk Commemorative Coin, presented by Nexstar Digital.

POSTGAME QUOTES

Lalonde on moving forward after this road trip

“We’ll get a little bit of a reset here with the travel back tomorrow. We’ll get a practice on Wednesday, which will be much needed. Hopefully clean up some puck play out of our zone, maybe a little bit of the track that will hopefully translate into our game on Thursday.”

Lalonde on Detroit’s penalty kill

“I liked our kill in the third [period]. That was huge for us. It gave us an opportunity to get that point and the goal late.”

Larkin on how he would summarize Monday’s OT game

“Missed opportunities. The whole game is a missed opportunity. We get one point, but got to have two here and finish the road trip on a good note. We didn’t do that. Again we had a lead and we just get sloppy. I don’t know how many goals we’ve allowed from the offensive zone. We got face-offs in the offensive zone and we win them, or we get out of our structure and they score. It’s just unacceptable.”

Larkin on the message on the bench after DeBrincat’s goal

“After we scored, we wanted to keep going. We got it to overtime and we got the point. We wanted to get the extra point, and we didn’t do that. We had the puck, then Lucas makes a great play. Great creativity there. They shoot, we change and they just go down, make a play and it’s in the net.”

Talbot on making saves amidst the Sharks’ sustained o-zone pressure

“That’s what I’m there for. I feel like I’ve been doing a pretty good job this year of keeping us in games like that, when we can’t find a way to get out clean and get a whistle. Tonight, I wasn’t able to do that. Cost us an extra point tonight for sure. That was on me.”

Tablot on what can get Detroit out of its current skid

“We just need a spark, some confidence. Your goalie to steal one for you, which I wanted to do tonight. And again, tonight was definitely one of the games that we needed to have. I expect better of myself. These guys expect better of me. I’ve got to do a better job tonight of limiting the damage and keeping us ahead.”