Despite Pavel Datsyuk’s two goals, Red Wings fall to Jets Tuesday night
By Michael Caples –
DETROIT – Pavel Datsyuk scored twice for the Red Wings Tuesday night at Joe Louis Arena.
The problem was that he was the only one in a winged wheel sweater to find the back of the net.
The Red Wings dropped their fourth straight game Tuesday night, falling to the Winnipeg Jets 3-2 in a contest that needed overtime to decide a winner.
Despite the loss, the Wings didn’t have much to complain about in the postgame interviews.
“Well I thought we played good,” coach Mike Babcock said. “We didn’t win, but I thought we played good. I liked our game today.”
Pavel Datsyuk scored twice on the power play for the Red Wings, recording his team’s only regulation goals. Jimmy Howard stopped 19 of the 21 shots he faced during the three-plus periods.
Datsyuk said it was good that the Red Wings found a way to score on the man-advantage, something they have struggled to do of late. Detroit was 2-of-3 in five-on-four power-play situations.
“We scored two, but we didn’t score in a few games,” Datsyuk said. “It’s good for us we score, but we need to keep going, rolling, this one it looked like we played well.”
Bryan Little and Zach Bogosian scored for the Jets. Ondrej Pavelec stopped 41 of the 43 regulation/overtime shots he faced in the contest.
“You have to take positive things now,” Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg said. “It is tough when you can’t get a W. We did a lot of good things. We played good in our own end. We played a little tighter. We had better forechecks, we scored two on the power play, we played good on the PK. Obviously you’re going to find things that aren’t good that will happen in games, but we just have to keep plugging away and get ready for the next game.”
The Red Wings were out-shooting the Jets early in the contest – it was 5-1 in favor of the home team at one point – but Little gave the Jets the first lead of the contest nonetheless.
The Jets’ assistant captain scored on a one-timer off a pass from Blake Wheeler during an odd-man rush, recording his 11th goal of the season at the 7:10 mark of the first.
The Wings evened the contest before the conclusion of the first period, however. On their second power-play chance of the game, Zetterberg sent a cross-ice pass to Datsyuk, and the Wings’ No. 13 fired a shot past goaltender Pavelec from just above the goal line.
It was Datsyuk’s eighth goal of the season, and it came at the 14:44 mark of the first period.
The two teams played to a scoreless second period, with the Red Wings leading on the shot chart 26-17 after 40 minutes of play.
Bogosian regained the Jets’ lead halfway through the third period, when he took a pass in the slot, deked to lure Howard out of the crease, and fired the puck into an empty net.
Datsyuk responded once again for the Red Wings three minutes later. Collecting a rebound off a shot from Johan Franzen, he tucked the puck inside the left post for his second goal of the night, and ninth of the season.
The rest of regulation, and the five-minute overtime session, finished with the score tied 2-2.
In the shootout, the Red Wings received a goal from Daniel Alfredsson, but misses from Datsyuk and Todd Bertuzzi led to the Jets capturing an extra point in the standings. Devin Setoguchi and Andrew Ladd recorded the shootout tallies for Winnipeg.
The Red Wings have the next few days off; Detroit welcomes Washington to Joe Louis Arena for a Friday night contest. Zetterberg said that his team will stay positive as they look for ways to end their losing streak.
“That’s all we can do right now, keep sticking together, believe in what we’re doing and eventually we will get rewarded for our play and we’ll get some wins,” the Wings’ captain said.