Red Wings climb back for shootout victory over Bruins

 

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT – The Red Wings were abysmal in the first period, but it’s how they finished that mattered Wednesday night.

Detroit climbed out of a 4-1 hole heading into the second period and ultimately topped the Boston Bruins in a shootout, 6-5. Dylan Larkin, Xavier Ouellet, Andreas Athanasiou, Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist all scored for Detroit. Frans Nielsen had the shootout winner. Petr Mrazek recorded the win in relief of starter Jared Coreau. Frank Vatrano potted a pair of goals and Patrice Bergeron had a three-point game for the Bruins.

Detroit improved to 20-19-6 with their third win in a row.

“I think we came in, took a deep breath, regrouped – it took us a little bit to get into the game, they came out and scored those two goals, the last one hurt but we found a way to win and that’s what’s important in the end,” Larkin said. “It’s unfortunate that Jared was on the wrong end of those goals. I wish we had better help in front of him. There was no reason he should have had chances like that against him that early, so we came in, regrouped, came out and started to forecheck and bring the game to them.”

Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill said his team need to compile a better 60-minute effort if it expects to win Friday in Buffalo.

“When you’re down 4-1 after the first, to come back is not easy in this league, so I think that says a lot about our guys,” Blashill said. “Now, our first was not good. We’ve gotta be much better than that come Friday in Buffalo if we want to win a hockey game. We can’t spot teams those types of periods. I think our guys absolutely know that, so we’ll have to come Friday ready to be much better, but I was impressed that we were able to mount an attack in the second. Momentum’s a funny thing. I thought we got momentum, and then we stuck with it in the third there and it was obviously a big goal to tie it.”

Vatrano opened the scoring just 44 seconds in for Boston, banging home a rebound in the slot.

And at the 2:27 mark with the Wings on the man advantage, the Bruins put on a shorthanded clinic to take a 2-0 lead. Persistent forechecking by Bergeron forced a turnover deep in the Detroit zone. Bergeron fed Marchand across the zone at the right circle, and Marchand set up Carlo trailing in for a one-timer that he ripped past Coreau high on the glove side.

Vatrano added his second of the game to make it a 3-0 game not even ten minutes into the game. That goal chased Coreau out of the game in favor of Mrazek.

“Let me be very clear: that had nothing to do with Jared’s play,” Blashill said of the goaltending change. “I thought Jared made a huge save in that first 30 seconds, a couple big saves and the puck went in. I didn’t think it had anything to do with his play, I thought obviously we weren’t ready to play and they out-competed us and as a result we were down, so I made the change. I thought Petr came in and played excellent. To be honest with you, I thought Petr has been playing very good. He hasn’t had the results he’s wanted and the pucks have gone in the net, but I think he’s actually played very well, so I thought he played excellent.”

With 4:28 to play in the opening frame, Larkin put the Wings on the board with his 12th of the season off a great Tomas Tatar pass. Tatar pulled up in the Boston zone and found Larkin streaking toward the goal.

But with 58.1 seconds remaining and the B’s on a power play, Krug found Bergeron in the high slot with a shot-pass that Bergeron deflected past Mrazek. That regained the three-goal lead for the Bruins to close out a high-scoring first period.

Detroit began the comeback early in the second period.

At the 4:21 mark of the second stanza, Ouellet let a slap shot go from the top of the left circle that beat Rask on the far side to pull Detroit to within two.

And a single second past the halfway point in the game, Athanasiou buried his tenth goal of the season to make it a 4-3 game. At the side of the goal, Athanasiou took a brilliant behind-the-back pass from Thomas Vanek. It marked Athanasiou’s fifth goal and eighth point in seven games.

Capitalizing on a Brandon Carlo miscue near the Detroit blue line in the final minutes of the period, Tatar jumped on the loose puck for a breakaway, deked forehand-backhand to beat Rask as the puck rode up and over the Bruins netminder. That evened the game at four.

But with no time to celebrate the comeback, Boston defenseman Adam McQuaid put the Bruins back on top 21 seconds later with a wrister from the right circle – just the Bruins’ second shot of the period – that deflected off the stick of Red Wings defenseman Jonathan Ericsson and past Mrazek.

It took the Wings nearly the entirety of the third period, but they managed to tie the game late, as Larkin found Nyquist in front amidst traffic to even the game at five aside with just 3:04 to play. That goal forced overtime.

Despite a frenetic extra frame, both teams needed a shootout to settle the contest. Vanek and Nielsen scored for the Wings, and Mrazek denied Vatrano at the end to clinch the second of two points.

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