NBCSN will continue its coverage of the 2016-17 campaign tonight when the Philadelphia Flyers host the Detroit Red Wings at 8:00 p.m. ET. If you want to watch the game online, you can do so here.
Last week, the Red Wings were riding high, as they rattled off six consecutive wins. Despite that run of success, captain Henrik Zetterberg warned his team that they were making too mistakes and relying on their goalie too much.
Not only is the winning streak over, but they lost back-to-back games to Boston (1-0) and Florida (5-2) over the weekend.
Trips to Philadelphia haven’t been much fun for the Wings over the last few years.
As the Detroit News points out, the team has dropped 11 straight games in Philly. Their last regular season win there came on Jan. 25 1997 (yes, you read that correctly).
It’s important to remember that when the Red Wings were in the Western Conference, they hardly played in Philadelphia, but 11 straight losses are 11 straight losses.
“Just like the Cubbies not winning it (World Series) for so long, it’s just the way it has been,” Brendan Smith said. “We don’t think about it. We just go in there and try to play our game and hopefully we come out of there with two points.”
The Flyers are coming off a 4-3 road win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday, but they’ve had a disappointing start to the year.
“We’ve let some points slide away,” GM Ron Hextall said, per CSN Philly. “Our defensive blunders have hurt us. But we’ve had a tough schedule. That certainly plays into it. I think we’ve been mediocre.
“We’re making the errors and it ends up in our net. It will sort itself out, and part of it is we have to be better consistently for 60 minutes.”
As inconsistent as the team’s been, they’ve received steady contributions from their top offensive players.
Claude Giroux enters tonight’s action on a nine-game point streak. He’s accumulated two goals and 12 points this season. Wayne Simmonds has a four-game point streak and has 11 points in 10 games overall, while Jakub Voracek has 10 points in 10 contests.
These two teams will face-off, again, in Philadelphia in less than a week.