By Mike Whitaker
DETROIT – Detroit Red Wings forward Alex DeBrincat is looking every bit like the two-time 40 goal scorer that they acquired during the 2023 offseason.
He broke the ice in Thursday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets with his 27th goal of the season, giving him points in eight consecutive games.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that from that point on, the Blue Jackets outscored the Red Wings 5-1 as part of their 5-2 win at Little Caesars Arena in the prelude to Saturday night’s Stadium Series game at Ohio Stadium.
Following the game, McLellan had no hesitation in calling out the performance of other Red Wings players and said they could stand to follow DeBrincat’s example.
“If you could take him and rub him against a few of our other guys tonight, we’d have a real good chance. You guys watch how competitive he is on every puck and in every situation. There’s nothing he backs down from – he plays in traffic and he’s physical on offense, which means when he’s got the puck he’s hard to knock off.
He goes to dirty areas to score, he’s not somebody that I’m at all concerned about, and that’s a good thing because that’s how he plays.”
The rest of the Red Wings could have stood to use some of DeBrincat’s playing style against Columbus, who routinely beat them to loose pucks, won net-front battles, and were overly more physical.
The Red Wings will once again face the Blue Jackets in front of a national television audience and potentially 100,000 fans at Ohio Stadium on Saturday evening.
