Red Wings return to win column with 5-2 victory over Oilers
By @SKubus –
DETROIT – Detroit Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock said his team has been “blah” for a bit, but it did retur to the win column after a two-game skid.
Detroit defeated the Edmonton Oilers Monday night at Joe Louis Arena by a 5-2 final. Jimmy Howard stopped 36 of 38 shots, while Niklas Kronwall, Riley Sheahan, Teemu Pulkkinen, Justin Abdelkader and Pavel Datsyuk each scored for the Red Wings.
Head coach Mike Babcock said the two points were what mattered Monday night, but he wants to see his team play up to its potential.
“We had a game today, we prepared and we won, so that’s a good thing.
“During the season, the emotional well, sometimes you just don’t have it. There’s no gas station to fill that baby up, it’s the truth. You try, but it fills up when it fills up. Sometimes you’re just ‘blah’ and we’ve been ‘blah’ for a bit, and ideally we’ll get some energy and get playing.
Pulkkinen registered the first multi-point game of his NHL career, assisting on Sheahan’s second-period goal. His head coach said it takes everyone to get acclimated to the NHL level, but that Pulkkinen is certainly ready given his early track record.
“He’s totally dominated the American Hockey League,” Babcock said. “Obviously he’s ready for the next level. He’ll figure out how not to check himself. He’s used to being able to drift around and find space, and there’s not as much space, so he’s got to learn to find space. Once he does that, he’ll become a real good player.”
Just 2:15 into the contest, on their second shot, Rob Klinkhammer crashed the net and banged home a rebound through the wickets of Howard.
Howard said his biggest challenge lately has been settling into a groove between the pipes.
“I’m still trying to find that night-in, night-out consistency that I want to have, and it’s another game I can build off of, so enjoy this one for now and get ready for Columbus on Thursday and just find that rhythm, because that’s what I’m searching for right now,” Howard said.
Despite a powerplay opportunity earlier in the period, the Red Wings still didn’t manage their first shot on goal until 9:21 had passed in the opening frame, with the Oilers holding a 9-1 advantage in that department.
While the Red Wings did pick up the pace late in the period, they still skated off the ice after 20 minutes down a goal, being outshot 14-7 by the league’s 29th team.
“Any time you start and you give up an ugly goal and then you’re kind of on your heels, it takes you a bit to get going, especially when you get shorthanded, so I thought we were kind of playing river hockey at the start,” Babcock said. “We were happy to turn the puck over and back check instead of just shoot the puck.”
The Red Wings took the ice for the second period a visibly different team, as just 21 seconds in with remaining powerplay time, Erik Cole entered the Oilers zone, dropped a pass for Kronwall who wired a wrister past Scrivens to tie things at one. The goal was his eighth of the season, with Henrik Zetterberg drawing the other helper.
At 14:04 of the second stanza, Pulkkinen threw a puck on net from the corner that forced a rebound. Gustav Nyquist picked up the puck, made a backhand dish to Sheahan who had a wide open net, and he made no mistake. That gave the Red Wings a 2-1 edge, one they held for the remainder of the period.
Pulkkinen added his third of the season from Pavel Datsyuk at 10:40 of the third period, as he pounced on a loose puck to the right of Scrivens, turned toward the net and roofed a wrister to give Detroit an all-important insurance goal.
With Zetterberg in the box for playing the puck over the glass in his own zone and Scrivens pulled for Edmonton, Nail Yakupov scored a 6-on-4 powerplay goal to make it a 3-2 game.
But Abdelkader scored his fourth in four game to regain the two-goal lead for Detroit, an empty net tally. Datsyuk then added an empty-net tally from his own goal line, and the Red Wings held Edmonton off the rest of the way to get back in the win column after dropping two straight to Calgary and Boston.
Detroit has a crucial day off Tuesday before preparing to face Columbus Thursday.
“I think it’s real important and the thing about it is we need a real good practice,” Babcock said. “After a day of freshening up, we can get that. We’ve got to get playing real well here.”
Notes: Evgeny Romasko became the first Russian to officiate an NHL game Monday night when he called the Red Wings-Oilers tilt. His first penalty call was on Marek Zidlicky for high-sticking.