RECAP: Red Wings look to move forward after falling to Penguins on Opening Night, 6-3

DETROIT -- One game into the 2023-24 season is a very small sample size, which is why the Detroit Red Wings want to clean up their mistakes and quickly put Thursday’s 6-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins at Little Caesars Arena behind them.

“Our overall team play needs to improve,” Detroit head coach Derek Lalonde said. “We have some work to do, and that starts with tomorrow. An opportunity against a really good team on Saturday.”

Scoring the Red Wings’ first goal of the season, Alex DeBrincat got a pass from Lucas Raymond and fired a one-timer into the back of the net from the left face-off circle to make it 1-0 at 3:46 of the first period. Captain Dylan Larkin also earned a secondary assist on DeBrincat’s game-opening tally.

Pittsburgh tied it 1-1 with 4:58 to go in the first period when Anthony Beauvillier banked a shot in off Ben Chiarot from below the goal line.

“Really good start actually,” Lalonde said about Detroit's first period. “Probably a little unfortunate to come out tied.”

Knocking in a rebound from the slot, Beauvillier’s second goal of the night made it 2-1 at 2:55 of the second period. Just 58 seconds later, Drew O’Connor put the Penguins ahead 3-1 when he one-timed Evgeni Malkin’s feed home.

“We got away from that first-period game that we had,” Larkin said. “Pucks were just going in.”

Pittsburgh added another goal at 5:28 of the second period when Marcus Pettersson scored against goalie Ville Husso with a shot from the point to make it 4-1. That ended Husso’s night, with netminder Cam Talbot coming in to replace him.

“All those goals in the second were self-inflicted,” DeBrincat said. “Seemed like we couldn’t keep it out of the net that period. Hard to battle back from 4-1. Just got to get more juice at the start of the second period. The start of each period is very important for us. Obviously we didn’t do a good job of that tonight.”

Vladimir Tarasenko’s first goal with the Red Wings cut it to 4-2 at 12:32 of the second period. Just as a power play was expiring, the 32-year-old forward snapped a shot that went over Penguins rookie goaltender Joel Blomqvist’s left shoulder. Mortiz Seider and DeBrincat had the assists.

“He finished, got some looks,” Lalonde said about Tarasenko. “That’s certainly a positive.”

Another goal from O’Connor with 6:17 left in the second was overturned after Detroit successfully challenged the play, with review determining there was a hand pass involved. Also in the second period, Jeff Petry exited with an upper-body injury and did not return.

Erik Karlsson scored on the man advantage at 1:42 of the third period, extending the lead to 5-2.

DeBrincat, who was assisted by Erik Gustafsson and Raymond, blasted in a laser shot off a rebound during a 5-on-3 power play to cut it to 5-3 at 8:13 of the third period.

“Obviously DeBrincat had an excellent game tonight,” Lalonde said. “You can tell he had some jump. I’m glad he finished. It’s important for those type of goal scorers to get those looks and some confidence early.”

Kevin Hayes restored Pittsburgh’s three-goal lead 4:08 later, going top shelf for the 6-3 final.

Husso allowed four goals on 14 shots, while Talbot allowed two goals on 14 shots for Detroit (0-1-0; 0 points). Making his NHL debut, Blomqvist turned aside 29 shots for the Penguins (1-1-0; 2 points).

“Just one of those nights where we couldn’t sustain any momentum,” Lalonde said. “Signs of it, had some spurts of it. We just couldn’t sustain it.”

NEXT UP: Hockeytown Opening Week, presented by Coca-Cola Zero Sugar and Meijer, continues when the Red Wings host the Nashville Predators on Saturday night. As part of the festivities, the annual fan-favorite Hockeytown Red Carpet Walk will be held from 3-4 p.m. in the Chevrolet Plaza area outside of Little Caesars Arena.

POSTGAME QUOTES

Lalonde on if the Red Wings did a good enough job of clearing the front of their net

“There’s a couple that were probably a little bit on the arrivals, little bit on the box-outs and little bit on the rebounds. It makes it tough on our guys when it pops out like that. Definitely a work in progress with some of those box-outs, gaps and D-zone coverage.”

Larkin on Thursday’s season-opening loss

“Every time we went out there, we felt like we were doing the right thing. Big-time breakdowns. It was a different story every shift. A lot of sloppy breakouts, sloppy coming back into our zone and finding coverage. Not a good second and third period, not a good start to our season.”

Larkin on if emotions impact play on Opening Night

“The last few years, we’ve been pretty good in openers. I can’t remember having problems like that in our openers. It is what it is. I don’t know if it’s a trend. They’re on a back-to-back, so you never know. We got to play the games and play a full 60 [minutes]. We didn’t do that tonight. They did.”

DeBrincat on what the Penguins did to limit the Red Wings’ power play

“A lot of it was us. We weren’t winning battles, weren’t clean in a lot of different plays. We had some good looks too, a couple good power plays. Overall I think we weren’t strong on our sticks.”