The first game back from a road trip is difficult, especially with one where a team picks up all ten points. The pressure is on to continue winning and to perform in front of the home crowd showing them what kind of work they did while away from the friendly confines of Jobing.com arena.

Facing a Detroit Red Wing team that is trying to salvage a dismal start to their road trip only makes the situation more complicated.

The Coyotes lost 5-1.

It is of no use blaming the officials for the interesting calls the Red Wings received because the better team clearly won. Coyotes goaltender Mikael Tellqvist did all he could to keep his team within shouting distance for two and a half periods when the score was 1-1, but without adequate support and penalty trouble for the Coyotes, he clearly ran out of gas.

The Red Wings top line of Tomas Holmstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg dominated the contest with Holmstrom scoring a hat trick and Datsyuk scoring two goals.

The Coyotes had difficulty passing the puck and taking care of the little details of the hockey game. On the preceding road trip, they won battles physically, they played well defensively, and they had solid goaltending.

Tonight, they had solid goaltending. However, Tellqvist cannot be expected to stop all 45 saves.

The most difficult image that I saw tonight was a Red Wings fan throwing his hat onto the ice when Holmstrom scored his third goal.

So then, the Coyotes win streak stops at seven – it was bound to happen. They must forget about this game and move to the next one against the San Jose Sharks.

Josh Gratton was a healthy scratch. The Coyotes are now 4-13-1 when he is not in the lineup.

Original post by PB and software by Elliott Back

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