Red Wings rally to beat Rangers; Babcock records 500th win
By @SKubus –
DETROIT – It wasn’t attractive and it certainly wasn’t a smooth sail, but the Detroit Red Wings ultimately triumphed Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena with a “gutty” effort to get head coach Mike Babcock his 500th career victory.
Down 2-0 after 20 minutes, Detroit stormed back with three straight goals from Riley Sheahan, Luke Glendening and Darren Helm to edge the New York Rangers by a 3-2 final for its sixth win in seven games. It also snapped a five-game losing streak against the Blueshirts. Jimmy Howard was solid between the pipes, turning away 27 of 29 shots for his 13th victory of the season.
Babcock initially downplayed his achievement, as he placed the importance on the two points instead.
“The two points tonight means way more. I thought that was a real gutty win. We got down 2-0 and weren’t as competitive as we’d like to be, but we really battled our way back.”
But shortly after, he said that upon entering the league, he hadn’t imagined reaching that milestone.
“Don’t get me wrong, 500 is great. Doing it with so many good players and good teams is great. When you start in the league, you’re hoping to coach 82 games, to be honest with you, just hoping to get through and not get fired.”
An early four-minute Red Wings power play saw Detroit spend nearly its entire duration in the New York zone, but the Rangers’ penalty kill blocked all but one shot thrown at goaltender Cam Talbot. And shortly after, the Rangers capitalized on that momentum, as Kevin Klein scored his fourth of the year at 9:31 to open the scoring on just the second Rangers shot.
Rick Nash added his 17th of the season from Derick Brassard at 14:48 to make it a 2-0 game. Brassard floated a backhand saucer pass from the Rangers’ zone toward center ice to a fleeting Nash, who made no mistake with the shot.
But Sheahan made sure that bleak start wouldn’t determine his team’s fate the rest of the way, as he responded for Detroit late in the second period with a spinning backhand shot that beat Talbot and ended his shutout streak at 159:48. Weiss drew an assist on the goal to give him his 10th point in seven games since returning from injury. Just 1:01 later, Glendening jammed home his third of the season on a rebound to tie things up and send Joe Louis Arena into a frenzy.
It was only the former Wolverine’s third goal of the season, known more for his defensive abilities, but what an impact it had considering the timing. That quickly reversed the Red Wings’ fortunes heading into the third period.
“We didn’t have a great first period,” Glendening said. “We came on in the second, put ourselves in a good position for the third, and were fortunate to get the win.”
In the final frame, Helm buried his third goal in two games at 7:40, as he capitalized on a fortuitous bounce off a Rangers player that sent him in for a partial break, snapping a wrister home with assists going to Tomas Tatar and Danny DeKeyser.
Detroit got into some penalty trouble in the latter half of the final period, fending off a 1:49 5-on-3 at one point, but managed to keep the Rangers off the board, largely in thanks to penalty killing by Glendening and Drew Miller–stick-less at one point. Though it wasn’t the way they wanted to do it, Detroit was able to inject some life into the crowd with the penalty kill, as the fans gave the unit a standing ovation essentially throughout its entirety.
“I thought it was incredible,” Babcock said of the penalty kill, which ranks third in the NHL. “Our guys really gutted it out and dug in, and sometimes those guys don’t score as much for us, but when you think the guys today did some scoring for us, real competitive guys that penalty kill and grind for us and that’s what you need.”
Glendening said defeating a pair of former Wolverines–teammate Carl Hagelin and training partner Matt Hunwick (Warren)–was even sweeter, considering that Detroit was winless against the Rangers in its last five attempts.
“I work out with Matt Hunwick, too, so it’s fun to get a win against those guys. I don’t know that we’ve beaten them too many times since I’ve been here so it was fun.”
The Red Wings have a quick turnaround now, as they head to Carolina to square off against former Red Wing Andrej Nestrasil and the Hurricanes Sunday evening.
“Now, we’ve got to find a way to get a meal in us, get energy and get ready to play tomorrow,” Babcock said. “Carolina doesn’t care that it was a tight, hard-fought game today. They’re ready to jump on us tomorrow, so we’ve got to get our mind right and get ready to play. When you’ve got good players and good leadership, you have a chance.”