Red Wings Review February 1-7, 2021
This season we will offer a weekly review of The Detroit Red Wings 2020-2021 season. Each review will be broken up into four sections: Broken Wings, which updates injuries for the week; Wing Movement, which updates transactions for the week; Games Review, Summery of game results for the week; and Talking Hockey, my own take on the Wing’s this week.
Broken Wings – The Red Wings saw Tyler Bertuzzi and Jonathan Bernier miss the entire week due to injury. Both players had suffered injures the prior week. Adam Erne, Robby Fabbri, Sam Gagner, Jon Merrill and Filip Zadina all activated from the COVID protocol list over the week. The Red Wings lost no players to COVID protocol over the week. Luke Glendening left Sunday’s game after taking a check to the head and will likely miss at least 10 days in concussion protocol.
Wing Movement – COVID protocol activations caused Taro Hirose, Givani Smith, Mathias Brome and Alex Biega to be designated to the taxi squad this week. Brome and Smith were both reactivated to the roster on Sunday after Anthony Mantha appeared to be a health scratch.
Game Review – The Red Wings played three games this week. A two-game series against the Tampa Bay Lightning and then the first game of a series against the Florida Panthers, who the Wings played last weekend. The Wings dropped both contests against Tampa but beat Florida 4-1. The Wings finished the week 1-2-0 for two out of six possible points. They have eight points on the season and are in last (8th) in the Central Division and 30th in the NHL.
Talking Hockey – The Red Wings needed a good start to the week after the poor play of the prior week but opened it by giving up three goals against in the first five minutes of Wednesday’s game against Tampa. Their play improved over the week, looked much better against Tampa on Friday. On Sunday, Detroit dominated the puck from the outset and controlled the entire game start to finish. Whether they can keep this effort level up this week will depend on the status of Anthony Mantha and Luke Glendening.
Player of the Week – Givani Smith – Smith played only twice this week, but his insertion into the lineup Friday seemed to change the entire team’s energy. His Gordie Howe Hat Trick Sunday led the team to their first win in two weeks.