The Detroit Red Wings carried a five-game point streak into Thursday night’s visit to the Vancouver Canucks, with a chance to make it six before they leave Rogers Arena. Detroit and Vancouver met at 7 p.m. PT, and the game arrived with both teams trying to steady themselves in very different ways.
The Red Wings entered at 3-3-3 with 9 points, while Vancouver came in at 2-8-1 with 5 points and an eight-game losing streak. The teams were not just playing for a result; they were playing to change the way their early season has felt. Detroit also had its second and final regular-season matchup with Vancouver set for Nov. 25 at Little Caesars Arena, so Thursday carried a little extra weight as the first half of that brief series.
Detroit’s point streak has been built on late push. On Tuesday, the Red Wings lost 4-3 in a shootout to the Seattle Kraken after Viktor Arvidsson, Lucas Raymond and Alex DeBrincat scored three unanswered third-period goals. That same third period has been a strong period for Detroit all season, with the club outscoring opponents 10-4 in the frame, a margin that helps explain why McLellan kept talking about how his group has stayed in games even when they have not started perfectly.
J.T. Compher gave the night another layer when he was activated from IR on Thursday afternoon after missing time since Oct. 4 with an undisclosed injury. Todd McLellan said he expected Compher to return to the lineup, but the coach also made clear the forward was not being dropped back into the game without a catch: he said Compher has to find his game after being out for a while, and that the pace around the NHL has picked up since then. That is the part of the story that matters most for Detroit tonight — not just whether Compher is available, but whether he can contribute right away in a game where the Red Wings want momentum and can not afford to waste shifts.
McLellan framed the matchup as one for desperate teams, and that description fits Vancouver as much as Detroit. The Canucks were coming off a 6-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, but they also came in with 11 players having scored at least two goals, a sign that their offense has spread around even as the goals against have piled up. Their 4.64 goals-against per game was the highest in the NHL as of Thursday morning, a number that tells the story plainly: the problem has not been one bad stretch, but a long run of damage at the back end.
Even so, McLellan credited Vancouver for the things that usually keep a team competitive when the results are ugly. He said Manny Malhotra’s team plays hard, goes to the net and shoots a lot of pucks, and added that the Canucks are developing an identity. That makes Thursday less about style points than survival. Detroit has already shown it can claw back into games, and Vancouver has shown it can make mistakes expensive. The next meeting comes Nov. 25 in Detroit, but first the Red Wings have a chance to turn a five-game point streak into six and leave Vancouver with more than just another road result.
