Red Wings drop special teams battle in 3-1 loss to Maple Leafs

TORONTO — The Red Wings lost the special teams battle in Friday's game, which in turn led them to also lose the game.

Toronto scored two power-play goals, the Wings could only answer with Dylan Larkin's power-play goal, and the Leafs wound up winning, 3-1.

The Leafs, playing without star goal-scorer Auston Matthews (69 goals last season), still had just enough offense to clip the Wings, with fellow stars Mitch Marner and John Tavares scoring power-play goals and Tavares adding an empty-net goal at 18 minutes, 28 seconds of the third period.

"Special teams, they scored two there on the power play, it was a tight game, and we got one," Larkin said. "Our penalty kill has to find our team momentum. We forechecked well in the second period, we got hemmed in our zone a little bit in the third, but we had chances, looks, scrambled pucks.

"We just didn't get the next one and that was the story."

On the empty net goal, Larkin and Moritz Seider mishandled the execution on a drop pass from Seider that led Tavares to get the puck and cement the outcome.

"It was a tough play, slow motion almost," Larkin said. "It's a puck I want back, just went by in slow motion, and something I can't let go past me there."

This was a low-event game for sure, with the Wings outshooting the Leafs 22-20, but few prime scoring opportunities by either team. What bothered coach Derek Lalonde more, overall, was the lack of execution at certain times.

"The empty-net goal, we always pull our goalie on the rush," Lalonde said. "Analytically you want the six guys on the rush on the entries and your numbers go through the roof. It was nothing out of the ordinary, it was just again, part of the execution. We tried a drop pass in that situation and fanned on it and unfortunately it ends up in the back of the net.

"It was a low-event type of games, not many chances given up. We were unable to execute in some situations. It was an opportunity to take some points in a tough building and we were unable to execute in some situations."

Wings goaltender Cam Talbot, starting in place of Alex Lyon (lower-body), made 17 saves. Toronto's Anthony Stolarz, one of the best free-agent signings of the young season, stopped 21 shots.

Stolarz made his best saves with just under five minutes left in regulation, gloving a puck with the Wings swarming near the net.

"We know playing in this building they'll swarm and get chances and create off the forecheck," Larkin said. "That's how they play. We weathered the storm when we had to. There wasn't much off the rush, they were above and tight and we tried to play that as well.

"There really wasn't much going on. It was just a special teams battle and we lost the special teams battle."

Larkin tied the game 1-1 with his ninth goal (in 14 games) at 9:10 of the second period. Larkin took a pass from Lucas Raymond near the hashmarks, and snapped a shot past Stolarz, extending Larkin's goal-scoring streak to four games.

"The power play was good and we needed it," Lalonde said. "(But) very frustrating we get it to 1-1 and we had a real good start to the period, you could feel the momentum our way and we took the too many men penalty."

The penalty against the Wings put Toronto on the power play at 10:11. Tavares, whose hooking penalty had put the Wings on the power play leading to Larkin's goal, then atoned for his penalty with his sixth goal and giving the Leafs a 2-1 lead.

"More frustrating in that they (the two Toronto power-play goals) were broken plays that unfortunately ended up in our net," Lalonde said. "But you have to do something before those plays to give yourself a chance."

Marner opened the game's scoring for the Leafs with his third goal. With Michael Rasmussen in the box for interference at 10:48, just 24 seconds later, Marner slipped in a rebound past Talbot in the slot area.

The Wings (6-6-1) complete the three-game-in-four-night stretch Saturday back at Little Caesars Arena against the New York Rangers.

"(We have to) put this one behind us and it's a tough opponent (Saturday) but we've done a good job as a group in performing during back-to-backs and we haven opportunity (Saturday)," Lalonde said.

The game was billed as the Hall of Fame night, one of the beginning events for the weekend, which ends Monday with the Hall inductions.

Former Wings great Pavel Datsyuk, one of this year's inductees, dropped the ceremonial pregame puck.