DETROIT—For the Detroit Red Wings, a second straight match-up with an established contender hamstrung in its present incarnation by injury yielding a second straight victory Sunday night. After knocking off the Sebastian Aho and Jordan Staal–less Carolina Hurricanes Friday, the Red Wings beat the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers—absent arguably their three best and most important forwards in Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov, and Sam Reinhart—Sunday to keep pace in the Eastern Conference wild card race as the season reaches its final decisive stages.
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With the win, Detroit has now taken seven of the last eight points available to it, and there will be no asterisks or end notes in the final standings explaining which players were available for which games, nor is there any need to apologize for achieving the necessary result. For the Red Wings, the two biggest factors in Sunday's victory were goaltender Cam Talbot and sniper Alex DeBrincat.
Talbot made 32 saves to secure the victory for the Red Wings, none bigger than the last of that bunch. In a sequence eerily reminiscent of the final seconds of Detroit's 2–1 win over the Bruins on Mar. 29, Panthers forward Mackie Samoskevich (who'd scored to cut the Detroit lead to 2–1 some 40 seconds earlier) sent a cross-seam pass to Anton Lundell, who hammered a would-be equalizer on net, only for Talbot to deny him with his glove.
"I can't tip my hat to him enough," said coach Todd McLellan of Talbot. "Good goaltending gives you an opportunity. It doesn't have to be every save, but it has to be the saves, and he made a couple of those tonight again."
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DeBrincat, meanwhile, missed his two easiest chances of the game. The first game on a second period power play, having been teed up for what looked to be a wide-open net by longtime running mate Patrick Kane only to send his one timer wide. The second came with the Florida net empty when DeBrincat sent a shot that could have clinched the result of the iron.
The good news for DeBrincat is that, ...
