(Photo by Andrew Knapik/MiHockey)

Detroit earns two points in 4-3 OT Black Friday win over Oilers

(Photo by Andrew Knapik/MiHockey)
Click on the image above to see a full photo gallery from Friday night’s game. (Photo by Andrew Knapik/MiHockey)

 

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT – With discounts everywhere in sight on Black Friday, the Red Wings earned themselves two points at Joe Louis Arena, complete with free shipping thanks to the delivery of Niklas Kronwall and Dylan Larkin.

After blowing a third-period lead for the second-straight game, the Red Wings once again headed to overtime in Friday’s tilt with the Edmonton Oilers. But this time, Kronwall – after one of his signature body checks in the first period – delivered the overtime winner off a feed from Waterford native Dylan Larkin to get Detroit back in the win column, a 4-3 final. Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar each scored their eighth goals of the season, while Larkin scored his team-leading ninth. Jimmy Howard stopped 21 of 24 in the win.

“Larks made a real nice play, held onto it, held onto it, made a great pass over, and I just tried to put it on net and luckily it went in,” Kronwall said of his goal.

Detroit head coach Jeff Blashill said it was good to see his group recover and close it out after experiencing the same situation in Wednesday’s loss to Boston.


“We needed those two (points) for sure, especially giving up a lead there,” Blashill said. “I thought the first half we played pretty well. I didn’t like the last eight minutes or so in the second, and I didn’t like us enough in the third; I think we can play better than that. That’s not to take away from Edmonton, they pushed hard, they have a lot of talent on the team there, but we’ve got to be better than that than we were the second half of the game.”

With a goal and an assist Friday night, Larkin continues to produce for the Red Wings. having scored in five of the past six games. And after posting a minus-one rating in each of the past two contests, Larkin was back on the positive side, a plus-two, to put him back at plus-13 on the season.

“He has a huge impact,” Blashill said. “When he gets the puck – we were just talking in the room, Ken Holland said this – when he gets the puck, he rarely makes a bad play with the puck. He’s still got things to learn away from the puck: stopping on pucks, stopping back in his D-zone things like that, but that’s our job as coaches to help him with that. He makes real good decisions with the puck, he’s able to make plays at high speed. He’s had a real impact on our year so far, he’s a big part of our team.”

With 13 minutes left in the opening frame, Kronwall stepped in for one of his signature hits just inside the Edmonton blue line, which fired up the Red Wings’ faithful. Oilers forward Matt Hendricks went after Kronwall, which gave Detroit a power play, but the Wings were unable to convert.

“That was a huge hit, it’s been a while since we’ve seen Kronner step up and give one of those hits, so it was great to see, and to finish it off there was a nice touch,” Howard said.

“He’s so good at timing it and when he gets you lined up, there’s nowhere to go.”

Detroit held a nine-to-four shot advantage after the opening period, with an additional eight shots that were blocked and six others that missed the net, so the Wings were generating offense; it just became a matter of capitalizing on their opportunities, a theme that has resonated throughout the room over the last month-and-a-half.

At 5:11 of the second period, the Wings finally broke through. Mike Green made a nice move around a defender, threw the puck on goal, crashed the net and Nyquist proceeded to bury the rebound past Oilers netminder Cam Talbot for his eighth of the season.

And at 12:07, Tatar decided to keep it a close race for the team lead in goals, as he also potted his eighth of the season on a feed from Nyquist, tying Nyquist and Larkin in goal totals. Tatar took a feed from Nyquist as the two crossed the Edmonton blue line. With ample space on the right side to move in, Tatar wound up and unleashed a wicked wrister from the top of the right circle to beat Talbot top shelf.

On their 13th shot of the game, an uncovered Iiro Pakarinen struck for the Oilers at 15:17 to cut the Wings’ lead to 2-1, finishing off a nice passing play across the Detroit slot.

With the Oilers on a power play late in the period, Andrej Sekera was left all alone in the high slot after the Wings’ penalty killers collapsed too low. Western Michigan alum Mark Letestu fed Sekera for the one-timer, and he blew it by Howard to even things up at two aside.

But just 1:40 later, the Red Wings responded, courtesy of Larkin’s ninth of the season. Zetterberg spotted Larkin bursting down the left side as he crossed the Edmonton blue line and slid a pass on the 19-year-old rookie’s tape. Larkin then pulled the puck to his backhand to beat Talbot and regain the one-goal lead for Detroit.

With 11:15 to play in the third period, a Kronwall turnover in the Detroit zone ended up right in the back of the Wings’ net, as Pakarinen was right there to capitalize and score his second of the game to tie things up at three aside.

The remainder of regulation solved nothing, so Detroit headed to overtime for the second-consecutive game.

And there, it was Kronwall who delivered the game-winning goal and his first on the season, taking a gorgeous saucer pass from Larkin and burying it in the top far corner over Talbot.

(Photo by Andrew Knapik/MiHockey)
(Photo by Andrew Knapik/MiHockey)