Rangers beat Red Wings during Hockey Fights Cancer night at JLA
By Stefan Kubus –
DETROIT – For the first time since Jan. 30, 1999, the Red Wings lost at home to the New York Rangers, a 3-2 overtime loss Saturday night in the first of three meetings between the two Original Six rivals this season.
Derick Brassard scored the overtime winner for the Rangers, while Cam Talbot – in just his second NHL game – recorded his first NHL win between the pipes. Drew Miller and Daniel Alfredsson scored for Detroit.
The Red Wings allowed 40 shots in the process en route to their fourth straight loss, almost a polar opposite of the defensively-tight effort against San Jose on Monday.
“When you look at our group… there’s no consistency in our play,” Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock said. “It doesn’t look like we’re wearing the other team out and, at the end of the night, I look at the shot clock and it has 40. Now we had 34, but 40 is way too many. I mean, 28 is too many.
“We got a long way to go in that area, and we’re going to have to sort this out. Obviously, we’ve faced a little bit of adversity here, and we’ve got to dig in. Having a four-game road trip is perfect for us, but we’ve got to get way better defensively, way better in our own zone and way better taking care of the puck.”
Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg said it was a better effort than Wednesday, but that there’s plenty of defensive improvements to be made.
“Obviously, it was better than the Wednesday game,” Zetterberg said. “I think in the first we played better. In the second, they kept it really simple. As soon as they got the puck in their own end, it was glass and out, three guys went. We got caught a few times in the second period and Howie played great for us.”
Miller started off the scoring late in the first period. The East Lansing native came down on a 2-on-1 and buried a short-side shot past Talbot from the left face-off circle in the Rangers’ zone for the 1-0 lead. Joakim Andersson and Danny DeKeyser drew assists on Miller’s first of the season.
The Rangers took their turn to score late in a period, as Benoit Pouliot tied things up at one aside at 17:20, banging home a rebound opportunity in front of Red Wings netminder Jimmy Howard on the power play.
Alfredsson responded with a power-play goal just two minutes later. Pavel Datsyuk fed Alfredsson in the high slot with 11 seconds left in the period, and No. 11 unleashed a one-timer to put Detroit up 2-1 after 40 minutes.
Mats Zuccarello knotted the game up at two aside in the early minutes of the third period. Howard stopped Marc Staal’s point shot, but was unable to grab up the rebound, allowing Zuccarello to bury the rebound from the high slot through Howard’s five-hole.
In overtime, a diving Pouliot along the boards at center ice chipped the puck past defenseman Kyle Quincey to the middle of the ice, springing Brassard on a breakaway. Brassard broke in on Howard and his shot found the twine to cap off the Rangers’ road trip with the 3-2 win.
“It’s frustrating,” Howard said. “We lost with 12 seconds left in overtime. I think, once again, we didn’t play a complete 60 minutes and it cost us.”
Babcock said the second period, much like in the win against Colorado, was a weak point for his club.
“They scored more than us, but the bottom line is they took the game over in the second period,” Babcock said. “I thought we fought to get it back in the third period, but in the second period we got skated, we turned pucks over through the neutral zone, we never got behind them enough.”
It’s been a tough week for the Red Wings, after losing 1-0 to San Jose in a tightly-played game and then being dominated by Ottawa, 6-1, on Wednesday.
“Something has to be done about it,” Howard said. “We’ve got to figure out a way in here to just go out there and compete for each other. It’s going to be the guys in here that get the job done, and it’s just believing in each other and not trying to do too much out there; just let guys do their jobs.”
Notes: In partnership with the Delete Blood Cancer DKMS, the Red Wings also held a bone marrow registration drive on the special night in memory of the late former Red Wing Shawn Burr.
To date, more than $12.8 million has been raised under the Hockey Fights Cancer initiative to support national and local cancer research institutions, children’s hospitals, player charities and local cancer organizations.