Red Wings Looking for Depth Goals

October 10, 2026 · Yahoo Sports

IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Through the first three games of their season, the Red Wings managed to score seven total goals as they headed into their matchup with the Seattle Kraken, with just one win to their name. Detroit ended its opening four game homestead with a 6-3 loss to the Kraken, ending a five game winning streak against the team.

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“We put a lot of time and work into doing what’s right, and we give it right back,” Head coach Todd McLellan said, ” We’ve got to go back to the drawing board. And yeah, it’s disappointing.”

Troublesome Twos

The Kraken had just over double the amount of goals (15) as the Red Wings despite having only played one more game than Detroit at this point in the year, with two six goal games before tonight.

The Red Wings led the Kraken twice, with Viktor Arvidsson scoring the first goal of the night on the Red Wings power play. The Swedish winger has scored all three goals of his goals so far in Detroit with the man advantage. Seattle didn’t take long to respond, however, with Berkly Catton tying the score before the end of the first period.

Detroit would take the lead again with William Wallinder scoring his first NHL goal tonight four minutes into the second, but from that point the Kraken took over the game. Despite having nearly double the shot attempts as the Kraken tonight, Detroit was unable to efficiently convert on their chances.

Frederick Gaudreau tied things up at two goals apiece less than a minute later, and Seattle found the back of the net three more times before the end of the period. The Red Wings defense collapsed in the second, letting in odd goals and leaving players at the backdoor to the net uncovered.

“It doesn’t matter how good you are on offense, you’ve got to still defend and try to be together more.” Michael Brandsegg-Nygard said.

McLellan finally pulled John Gibson out of the net after allowing five goals on ten shots a little over halfway through the game, with Daniil Tarasov making his Red Wings debut in relief. The Russian netminder would stop eight of the nine shots he faced tonight, giving up one goal in the third period on a Seattle power play to Vince Dunn.

Detroit still finding balance

Brandsegg-Nygard was credited with his first NHL tonight to bring the Red Wings late in the game to bring the Red Wings within three. However, the Red Wings have had trouble finding scoring outside of their top two lines, and more specifically, Arvidsson and Alex DeBrincat.

Put together, the two have as many goals (5) as the rest of the team combined so far this year. The Kraken had five different players score just tonight. While Detroit did find two new goal-scorers tonight with Brandsegg-Nygard and defenseman Wallinder netting their first NHL goals, Detroit’s forward corps still has a lot of work to do to get up to speed with the rest of the league.

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