The Detroit Red Wings ended the 5 game losing streak they had against the New York Rangers tonight as the Wings knocked off the Rangers 3 to 2 at the “Joe”. In addition the Wings got Coach Mike Babcock his 500th coaching win. However they did not do it in easy fashion, first having to come back from a 2 goal deficit and then killing off 2 lengthy 5 on 3’s in the 3rd period to get the win. The Wings used the formula of good penalty killing, great goal tending and balanced scoring to get the win. Detroit fell behind in the 1st period. As the 1st period approached the halfway point the Rangers took control of the play and made the Wings pay. The first goal resulted from a turnover behind the Wings net and the puck ended up in front of the Wings goalie Jimmy Howard and Kevin Klein won the battle in front of the Wings net with Jakub Kindle and put a backhander past Howard. The goal was scored with 10:29 to play in the period. Kevin Hayes and Carl Hagelin assisted on the goal. Then with 5:12 to play the Wings got caught with 5 guys deep in the Ranger’s end and this resulted in a Rick Nash breakaway. Derrick Brassard got the only assist on the goal. With the Rangers up 2 to 0, the Wings could not go down by 3 and thanks to Howard it did not happen. He made several great saves before the period would end to keep the Wings within shouting distance. The 2nd period got underway and the Wings desperately needed to get the next goal and they would accomplish that feat and one better. With less than 6 minutes to go Riley Sheahan started Johan Franzen out of the Detroit end. Franzen carried the puck into the Ranger end and then pushed the puck to Stephen Weiss. Weiss then found Sheahan in front of the Ranger net and Riley spun around and took a backhand shot beating Ranger goalie Cam Talbot to get the Wings back in the game trailing 2 to 1. This was with 5:46 to play in the 2nd period. Then 1:01 later the Wings got the equalizer. Getting the balance scoring that every good team needs the Wings 4th line struck. Drew Miller carried the puck into the Ranger end and made a nice move at the face off circle to get a shot on net. The puck lay tantalizing in the Ranger crease and Luke Glendening was “Johnny on the Spot” and put the puck in the Ranger net to tie the game at 2 all. Joakim Andersson also got an assist on the goal. However before the period would end Howard was called upon to make another great save as the Rangers finished the period on a power play. As the 3rd period started the Wings had to finish killing off the carry over penalty to Brendan Smith which the Wings were successful in doing. With the score still tied, Darren Helm untied the game with 12:20 to play. Helm received a pass from Tomas Tatar, which hit a Ranger stick and ended up on Helm’s stick and he skated in and took a wrist shot and buried it past Talbot to put Detroit up 3-2. Danny DeKeyser got an assist as well on the goal. However before the Wings could put this in the win column they had to kill off two lengthy 5 on 3’s. The first one was for 47 seconds. With Franzen serving a too many men on the ice, due to Miller not being able to get off the ice, due to an injury, Kyle Quincey was hit with a double minor for high sticking. The Wings were able to kill that off but with Quincey still in the box for the double minor, Jonathan Ericsson was hit with a high sticking penalty which resulted in another 5 on 3 for 1:47. While they were killing that off Miller’s stick broke which basically made it a 5 on 2. Detroit was able to kill it off and the rest, as they say is history. The Rangers outshot the Wings 12 to 10 in the 1st period but then Detroit turned the tide in the 2nd period outshooting the Rangers 15 to 10. In the 3rd period even with the two 5 on 3’s Detroit was able to outshoot the Rangers 9 to 7. For the game Detroit outshot New York 34 to 29. However make no mistake about it Howard was one of the keys to this victory. It should also be noted that with the two 5 on 3’s the Rangers were only able to get 3 shots out of it. The 3 stars tonight were Darren Helm, with the 1st star, with a goal, the game winner, Jimmy Howard with 27 saves and Ranger goalie Cam Talbot was the third star. With the win Detroit improves to 16-6-5 good for 37 points. The win also allows the Wins to leap frog Montreal and move into 2nd place in the Atlantic Division. They trail the 1st place Lightning by 2 points. Detroit does not have a lot of time to savor the win as they have a 5 pm meeting tomorrow with the Hurricanes in Carolina. In addition to the play of Howard, the penalty kill and balanced scoring the crowd also deserves mention. The “Joe” was rocking especial in the 3rd period during the penalty kills. These “Original Six” matchups are something we too often missed before re-alignment took place but something everyone seems to be enjoying and who can blame them?
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 03:22:33 +0000