Red Wings inch closer to playoff berth with 3-2 victory over Carolina


Photos by Jen Hefner/MiHockey

By @SKubus

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings did their part in clinching a 24th consecutive playoff berth Tuesday night.

Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Gustav Nyquist lit the lamp for Detroit, and Jimmy Howard made 30 saves, as the Red Wings boosted themselves two points closer to the postseason with a 3-2 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes. The Ottawa Senators came back to defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins in overtime just after the Red Wings wrapped up their victory, so Detroit was unable to clinch a playoff spot; they needed Pittsburgh to win in regulation.

“We control our own destiny,” Howard said. “We’ve got to go out there and get points, and we found a way to do that today, and I thought we showed a lot of character doing that.”

Head coach Mike Babcock has been preaching that if the team does good things, good things will happen to it. He said Tuesday’s effort was a good example of that.

“We talk about after two periods, we built a foundation for these situations, just believe in what you’re doing and believe in one another and keep playing. That’s what you do. It doesn’t guarantee you success, but it sure gives you a real good opportunity, and now we’ve got to go win another game.”

Babcock also reunited Zetterberg and Datsyuk on a line with Darren Helm. The trio combined for five points on the night.

“We needed their goals, and they did a good job for us,” Babcock said.

The Red Wings came out buzzing in the opening frame, seeing several quality scoring chances just miss, but it was something to build off of.

A mere 57 seconds into the middle frame, former Plymouth Whalers standout Michal Jordan took a delay of game minor, giving Detroit the powerplay it needed to send the offensive charge over the hump.

With all four Hurricanes caught watching the puck in the corner, Stephen Weiss was able to get the puck to a wide-open Zetterberg out in front on the far side of Khudobin. With ample time in front of the Carolina netminder, Zetterberg made a forehand-backhand deke and then went upstairs to give his club the game’s first lead.

Turnovers continued to haunt Detroit, as Oxford native Nathan Gerbe made the Red Wings pay for one late in the second period, scoring with 5:52 to play in the second period to even things up at one aside. And 3:02 later, Plymouth Whalers product Chris Terry potted the go-ahead goal for the Hurricanes, a rebound following a nice Justin Faulk rush down the middle of the ice.

The Red Wings took the ice for the third period set on finishing the game strong.

And Nyquist took a feed from Datsyuk at 1:56 into the final frame and buried a show low to the far side for his 27th of the season to knot the affair at two aside. With 8:35 remaining in the game, Zetterberg carried the puck in the Carolina zone and used his often-stellar puck protection abilities to continue below the goal line and around the net. He then found Datsyuk in front, who buried his 25th of the season to put Detroit up 3-2.

That goal would stand as the game-winner as Howard and the Red Wings buckled up defensively and weathered a 6-on-5 offensive storm from the Hurricanes to capture the win.

Detroit heads to Montreal where they will face the Canadiens at the Bell Centre. There’s a bit of good news for Detroit, however, as former University of Michigan standout Max Pacioretty has been ruled out by the team for Thursday’s game. Either way, the Red Wings know they have the power to decide their fate.

“We’ve got to get our points when we can, a hard-fought game tonight,” Zetterberg said. “It’s nice to see that we came away with two.”