Zetterberg’s return not enough; Wings fall to Bruins in Game 4 at JLA

Photo by Jen Hefner/MiHockey

 

By Stefan Kubus –

DETROIT – Niklas Kronwall and Pavel Datsyuk each welcomed new additions to their respective families in the last 24 hours, and it seemed to fuel their efforts Thursday night.

But despite the duo setting each other up for both Detroit goals and having captain Henrik Zetterberg return, it wasn’t enough to overcome the President’s Trophy-winning Bruins at Joe Louis Arena in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. Livonia native Torey Krug, Milan Lucic scored in regulation, and Jarome Iginla scored in overtime off of Danny DeKeyser’s leg for the 3-2 win and a commanding 3-1 series lead heading back to Boston.

“It’s steep, but we know it’s tough to close out a series,” Zetterberg said of Detroit’s series deficit. “We’ve been in that spot before and we’ve just got to go win a game.”

Jonas Gustavsson stopped 37 of 40 shots in a surprise start – he found out after warmups – after Jimmy Howard couldn’t go due to the flu.

“Monster was awesome for us, he came up huge for us at times, gave us a chance,” Kronwall said. “It’s one of those, you feel bad you couldn’t win one for him. I thought he was awesome all game.”

Babcock said he thought Gustavsson played well also and is still undecided who will get the nod in Boston on Saturday for Game 5 – given both Gustavsson’s performance and Howard’s uncertain status.

In the game, it was the newly-minted fathers that hooked up for the first goal.

Marquette native Justin Florek took a double-minor for high sticking Lansing native Drew Miller. On the ensuing face-off, Datsyuk – whose wife gave birth to a girl, Vasilisa, yesterday – won the draw back to Kronwall – today his girlfriend gave birth at 11:31 a.m. to a boy, Douglas. And just four seconds into the power play, Kronwall wound up and ripped a booming missile from the point that blew past Rask to make it 1-0 with nine minutes left in the opening frame.

“It was a big day for me and my girl,” Kronwall said. “It’s something I’ll never forget, for sure… Just holding your son for the first time, it’s a pretty special feeling.”

Later in the period, B’s defenseman Kevan Miller hit Brad Marchand with a back-door pass, setting him up with a wide-open net. But somehow, Marchand’s shot fluttered wide of the net on the far side.

Just 4:27 into the second period, the same wonder-parent duo from Detroit struck again.

This time, it was Kronwall who grabbed the puck out of mid-air behind the net, set it down and fed it out front to Datsyuk who had an open net with a fooled Rask unable to slide over in time to make the save.

But Boston responded on Krug’s marker near the halfway point of the second stanza. Similar to the Kronwall tally, Patrice Bergeron won the draw back to Krug at the right point, and the Livonia native ripped a slap shot home to cut the Red Wings lead in half.

“It’s pretty cool,” Krug said of scoring his first goal in Detroit. “I don’t think I ever scored in my college days here. My first goal at The Joe in the playoffs? No better time to get our team going.”

Lucic then tied things up 1:15 into the third period tapping home a gorgeous, short-side drop pass from Carl Soderberg as he skated behind the net. And just past the halfway mark of the period, Marchand missed another wide-open net, as he failed to finish a gorgeous tic-tac-toe Bruins passing play, which set up overtime for the first time in this series.

In the eventful extra frame, with 6:28 remaining, Dougie Hamilton stepped in from the point, threw a puck on net that Iginla tipped, and the puck bounced off DeKeyser in front and in the net for the win. While it wasn’t a pretty goal by any means, both Zetterberg and Kronwall said “that’s a playoff goal.”

Detroit will face elimination for the first time this series, as the Red Wings and Bruins will square off for Game 5 in Boston Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m.

“We’ve got nothing to lose,” Kronwall said. “We’re going into Boston to win one game… Clean up the areas that we have to clean up and just go for it.”

Krug said the back-to-back wins at Joe Louis Arena were huge for his team, and that they hope there won’t be any more trips to Detroit in their near future.

“It’s huge for us. We don’t want to come back here. We want to give ourselves a chance to win at home, and we play well at home, and it’s a fun environment in our building when we have a chance to close things out.