Red Wings rebound from Sunday afternoon loss with Monday night win
By Michael Caples –
DETROIT – This one went a little better than the last for the Red Wings.
Just a day after a 7-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on national TV broadcast, the Red Wings rebounded to beat the Colorado Avalance 3-2 Monday night at Joe Louis Arena.
Justin Abdelkader, Dan Cleary and Damien Brunner all scored for the Red Wings, while Jimmy Howard stopped 22 of 24 shots to pick up his 15th win of the season.
“It was a good win,” Abdelkader said. “I thought we came out and had a lot better start and kind of set the tone for the rest of the game for us.”
Detroit improves to 18-13-5 (41 points) with the victory.
“It was good getting right back at it,” said Johan Franzen, who picked up two assists in the win. “Nobody was happy with the way we played yesterday, so, we came out a lot stronger tonight. It got tight in the end, but we pulled it off.”
Abdelkader opened up the scoring for the Red Wings with an impressive showing of hand-eye coordination at the 15:57 mark of the opening period. Driving to the Colorado goal, Abdelkader was able to knock a rebound past goaltender Semyon Varlamov out of mid-air for his seventh goal of the season.
The Red Wings credited the play of Niklas Kronwall and Pavel Datsyuk for jump-starting a play in which he hopes could be a tryout for the other team the Ilitch family owns.
“Kronner and Pav down low made a nice play, Kronner skated the puck up the middle, and moved it out to Mule. Mule made a good shot, and I just kind of did my best to get a little stick on the play, and I guess for a Tigers opening of the season, I wanted to see how I would stack up, you know, bunting the puck into the net.”
Cleary scored a power-play goal at the 6:28 mark of the second period, burying a pass from Johan Franzen just above the Avalanche crease. It was the Newfoundland native’s eighth goal of the season.
Brunner increased the Detroit lead to three when he fired in a feed from Gustav Nyquist. The rookie forward hadn’t scored since Feb. 24, when he had two goals and two assists in the Wings’ lopsided win over the Vancouver Canucks.
Jean-Sebastien Giguere entered in relief of Varlamov after the third Detroit goal.
Jamie McGinn scored the first goal for the Avalanche on the result of a scramble in front of the Red Wings’ goal crease. Howard had difficulty freeing himself from a pile above the Detroit crease, and McGinn was able to fire in a backhander.
Matt Duchene pulled the Avalanche within one goal when he gloved down a puck well above his head, skated towards the Red Wings goal, and beat Howard with a deke to the backhand.
However, Howard robbed PA Parenteau with a glove save off a face-off scramble with seven seconds remaining to preserve the win for the Red Wings.
Notes: Detroit Red Wings athletic trainer Piet Van Zant, a Central Michigan University alum, worked his 1,500th game as a member of the Red Wings tonight…Carlo Colaiacovo made his home debut with the Red Wings after missing 29 games with a shoulder injury. Colaiacovo played two games with the Grand Rapids Griffins in a conditioning stint.