Trending: Smith gets first NHL goal in loss to Islanders

UNIONDALE -- The Red Wings have not had any luck at all against Metropolitan Division teams this season.
That trend continued in Long Island Tuesday night as the Islanders dominated the Wings, 8-2, at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, a notoriously loud building.

It is the most goals Detroit has allowed this season and the most that New York has scored this season.
The Wings (12-32-3) fell to 0-11 against the Metropolitan Division.
Filip Hronek and Givani Smith (first career NHL goal) scored for the Wings.
Jordan Eberle, Josh Bailey, Brock Nelson (two), Anders Lee, Noah Dobson (first career NHL goal), Anthony Beauvillier and Leo Komarov scored for the Islanders.
Detroit goaltender Jimmy Howard (2-16-1) stopped 4 of 7 shots he faced before being lifted for Calvin Pickard (0-2-0), who made 14 saves.
New York netminder Thomas Greiss (13-7-0) had 34 saves.
Up next for the Wings is a back-to-back set at home Friday against the Pittsburgh Penguins and Saturday against the Florida Panthers.
The Islanders (28-13-4) will host the New York Rangers Thursday night at Nassau Coliseum.
1. Givani Smith: Since returning to the Wings, Smith has made his presence felt, especially around the net. He went toe-to-toe with San Jose's Brent Burns on New Year's Eve and he has had a few near misses around the net. Smith earned his first career point with an assist on Jan. 7 against the Montreal Canadiens. At 14:00 of the third, Smith deflected Christoffer Ehn's shot past Greiss for his first career NHL goal. Patrik Nemeth got the second assist. While Smith would rather have scored in a victory, every NHL player remembers his first goal and this will be no different for the big forward. Of course, Smith couldn't really celebrate this one in a blowout loss. Smith finished with 15 shifts for 13:10, had one shot, one takeaway and was minus-1.

Quotable: "Really exciting, working pretty hard to get to that point and it's really tough to lose the game but big milestone for me. I didn't want to go too crazy. It was a shot from outside, it was a little bit high, so I didn't want to psych myself out." - Smith
Quotable II: "He's brought a physicality to our team. That fourth line, they're hard to play against, because when the puck's chipped in, he's got a long stick. He gets his stick on the puck and he finishes his man. You saw that on the goal. He played simple. He chipped it down the wall. Ehner got it back and took a shot and he is there at the net. There's a simplicity to his game and a physicality that he brings. He's been playing well. He's been a bright spot. We need him to keep going. Again, we all need to be better but it is encouraging to see him come up and play the way he plays. To get his first goal tonight is exciting. In a game where it wasn't going our way and the score was the score, he showed a lot of maturity for scoring his first goal and celebration he had was a guy that understands the game and is a mature guy. I was proud of him for that and I've been proud of the way he's been playing." - Dylan Larkin

Quotable III: "It was nice to see Smitty working hard since he's been up here. I think we've been forming some good chemistry as a line. We all know how we want to play out there and we try to keep it simple, try to get some O-zone, some grind time and when you do that plays like that open up, where you can get shots and tips. As a group we just try to keep it simple." - Abdelkader
Quotable IV: "That Ehner line with Abby and Smitty has built a little bit of an identity. They're getting pucks behind, they're heavy in the O-zone, they're rimming it to the bottom. They play a good kind of cycle game. They've given us some good momentum shifts. I thought they were good last game. I remember in the second period, they started to turn the tide of that game a little bit. They're playing to an identity. That's a positive." - Wings coach Jeff Blashill
2. Filip Hronek: Certainly one of the bright spots for Detroit this season has been the development of Hronek, who has been thrust into a big role due to Danny DeKeyser's back injury and subsequent surgery. Hronek is leading the team in ice time on a nightly basis and is playing in all situations. At 11:48 of the first, Hronek's shot from the left point beat Greiss stick-side. It was Hronek's ninth goal of the season and first of the calendar year. Hronek continues to lead Detroit's defensemen in scoring with nine goals among his 26 points. Hronek finished with 25 shifts for a team-high 23:06, had one shot, two hits, a giveaway and was minus-2.

Quotable: "Fil's been good. He's been moving pucks and playing a lot of minutes. I don't know if there's much I can say right now. He's been good. We all have to be better, though. Every guy, you don't look at yourself in the mirror after this game and think that you played well or did a good job. You've got to evaluate. You've got to find what were in it here for in the last 30-35 games. We gotta work for each other and want to be better for each other. That's what it's gotta start with." - Larkin
Quotable II: "We came out and I thought the very first part of the start was fine. I think we were outshooting them 4-1 and thought we had a little something going on. I felt like we were working and actually thought we were in the very first few minutes, we were the better team. I thought and I remarked to myself, 'Good for us.' Generally, the team that played the night before has a little advantage. And then we got scored on and it unraveled. We weren't good enough. I thought there were some guys that were really ready to go and some guys that weren't ready to go well enough. You gotta compete at a high, high level. We got some guys that are in some prime spots that have to understand how hard you gotta compete every night. We talked about that in between the first. We gotta be way better than that. I thought we let Jimmy hanging out to dry a little bit. I said to him, I met with him yesterday and said on thing we gotta make sure is we're good enough in front of you to help you get this thing rolling in the right direction. Well, we weren't good enough in front of him. It wasn't a goalie pull where I thought it was his fault. It was a goalie pull to try to do anything we could to quell the momentum. In the end it didn't work." - Blashill
3. Dylan Larkin/Robby Fabbri: Fabbri and Larkin picked up the assists on Hronek's goal, which extends both players' point streaks. Fabbri now has a four-game point streak, with one goal and three assists in that span. Larkin now has a team-best seven-game point streak, with two goals and five assists during his streak. Larkin finished with 24 shifts for 21:50, second only to Hronek in ice time, had a team-high four shots, one hit, one blocked shot, was 10-for-22 in face-offs and was minus-1. Fabbri had 22 shifts for 18:26, had three shots, three hits, two giveaways, one takeaway and was minus-1.

Quotable: "Again it was not the start we were looking for. We didn't help out Howie at all in the start. In a building like this where it's a momentum building, we knew, and we talked about it before the game that we were gonna have to have a good start, and we didn't do that. We didn't help out Howie. We left him out to dry. Once the snowball was going downhill, it just got bigger and bigger. They just kept getting bounces. Tough to explain, tough to put it on that. We just didn't show up in the first like we would've liked to." - Larkin
Quotable II: "No real message, just continue to play. That's been our message all year. No matter if a team scores of what happens that shift, we got to have a next shift mentality and continue to go out and work and play hard. Mostly importantly, we want to be competitive out there. Mistakes happen but you got to go out and try to win your shift, win your battle with the guy across from you. We got to continue to do more of that. When you're on the road, you got o keep it simple. This has always been a tough building for us over the years. Not starting on time makes it real tough." - Abdelkader