Red Wings shut out by Rangers in overtime loss at Joe Louis Arena
By @StefanKubus –
DETROIT – The Red Wings kept the league’s highest-scoring team off the board for more than 60 minutes Sunday afternoon at Joe Louis Arena.
While that can be seen as a positive, it was Plymouth Whalers alum JT Miller who ended the game with 3:04 left in OT off a 2-on-0 feed from Mats Zuccarello, as the Rangers took a 1-0 decision. Jared Coreau took the loss in goal for Detroit, as he stopped 18 of 19 shots, while Henrik Lundqvist earned the shutout for New York.
“We’re playing better hockey,” Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg said of his team’s play lately. “We’re more consistent, we’re playing against pretty good teams here lately. Structure is good, we’re doing the little things right. If you’re in games like this, you’ll get your points. Sometimes, unfortunately, you only get one when you want to get two, but if we keep playing like this, we’ll be happy.”
Coreau fell to 5-1-2 on the season, but was sharp all afternoon and improved his save percentage to .904 and his goals-against average to 2.79.
“I felt great, and I think the guys played great, too,” Coreau said. “Defensively, we were sound again, some huge blocks, we cleared the puck well, we had crisp passes on breakouts. We played a good game, they played a good game and it was just gonna come down to that one goal or maybe a shootout.”
The Northern Michigan alum added how special it was dueling against Lundqvist, a guy he grew up watching, and also how much of a learning experience it can be.
“During the game you look down – I used to watch him growing up, but you don’t think about it too much, you don’t want to consume yourself with that. But it’s awesome playing against guys like that, I like to take notes, keep an eye on things they do and maybe implement them in my game.”
In the game, the first period proved fruitless on the scoreboard, largely due to Coreau’s counterpart as the Wings dominated the frame in terms of offensive zone time. The best chance came off the stick of Thomas Vanek, who worked a gorgeous give-and-go down low with Andreas Athanasiou. Vanek took a return pass in front of Lundqvist, waited out the Rangers’ netminder and found the post.
At the end of the period while in front of the goal, Vanek was hit with a shot down low in the groin area and skated off gingerly. It was announced in the second period that he would not return, a big loss for Detroit as Vanek’s 0.89 points-per-game – 12 goals, 19 assists in 35 games – mark leads the Wings.
There was no immediate update on his condition, but Blashill said it appears it shouldn’t be too long term.
“I thought he started the game great, I thought he had a great first period,” Blashill said. “He’s one of our real dynamic offensive guys and you lose a little bit of offensive punch, but with that said, we got enough other guys in the room with lots of offense.”
Defenseman Niklas Kronwall returned to the lineup after missing the past eight games due to a groin injury.
“I felt decent out there,” Kronwall said. “There’s still some timing issues when you’ve been out for a bit, but overall I felt OK.”
Early in the third period, the Red Wings lost Luke Glendening for most of the period following his second shift of the period at the 3:43 mark. The Grand Rapids native and Wolverines alum did return in the final minutes.
Without a single goal for the game’s first 60 minutes, it took overtime to solve.
And as seen so often in overtime, a rush one way often leads to a rush the other way.
With 1:56 into the extra frame, Zuccarello found Miller on a 2-on-0 rush to clinch the second point for New York.
Despite the loss, the Wings earned a point to their recent run of eight points in their last ten outings. Detroit has also earned seven out of a possible eight points in home games to start the new year..
The Wings play in Boston Tuesday before hosting Toronto the next night at The Joe.