Red Wings shut out by the Flyers Tuesday night
By Nick Barnowski –
The Detroit Red Wings were shut out for the third consecutive time on the road Tuesday night against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Scott Hartnell had two goals and an assist and Claude Giroux had one goal and two assists to lead the Flyers (26-22-6) to a 5-0 victory over the Wings at the Wells Fargo Center.
Detroit (23-19-11) had been shut out on the road against the Anaheim Ducks (Jan. 12) and the New York Rangers (Jan. 16), both by scores of 1-0.
The Wings were missing the services of, among others, captain Henrik Zetterberg, forwards Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen, and starting goaltender Jimmy Howard.
Although they had 33 shots on goal, Flyers goaltender Steve Mason stopped them all in his second shutout of the season. Jonas Gustvasson made 23 saves in the loss.
Hartnell scored his first with just under seven mintues left in the first. With the Wings shorthanded after a Danny DeKeyser penalty, Hartnell redirected a Kimmo Timonen shot from the point past Gustavsson to put the Flyers up 1-0.
Multiple offsetting penalties saw the two team’s play 4-on-4 until a Nicklas Grossman penalty put the Red Wings on a 4-on-3 power play in which they were unable to convert. The Wings struggled with the man advantage all night, going 0-4.
Roughly midway through the second Hartnell capitalized on a scoring opportunity for his second goal of the game, again assisted by Giroux. The two came in on a two-on-one into the Detroit defensive zone and the Flyers captain made a nice cross-ice pass to Hartnell who fired it past Gustavsson.
Then, former Michigan State Spartan Adam Hall scored his third of the season to seemingly put the game out of reach.
In the third period, Giroux scored his 16th of the year and Sean Couturier also put one in the back of the net.
While the Wings were shutout, they had a number of scoring opportunities and throughout the game just seemed like they couldn’t buy a goal.
A Luke Glendening shot in the first period was stopped by trickled through Mason but ended up just wide of the net. Shortly after, Riley Sheahan let a shot go from the slot that hit the post. Then, in Detroit’s best scoring chance of the game, Glendening was stopped again by Mason on a two-on-one and Kyle Quincey’s shot on the rebound hit the cross bar.
Detroit hits the ice again on Friday at home against the Washington Capitals.