Goaltender Mike Smith scores in Coyotes’ 5-2 win over Red Wings

By Nick Barnowski – 

The Red Wings’ four game winning streak came to an end Saturday night, but that wasn’t the story at Jobing.com Arena.

Phoenix Coyotes goalie Mike Smith became just the sixth goalie in NHL history to score a goal by shooting the puck into the opposing team’s net, capping off his team’s 5-2 victory over the Red Wings.

Smith joined Ron Hextall (twice), Martin Brodeur, Chris Osgood, Jose Theodore, and Evgeni Nabokov as the only goalies to complete the feat.

He also made 31 saves in net to help improve Phoenix’s record to 5-2-2.

Jimmy Howard made 28 saves in his first start since suffering a bruised hand on October 12 against Philadelphia.

Less than five minutes into the game, the Red Wings (6-3) stuck first. Henrik Zetterberg corralled the puck on the far right-hand side of the goal line and fired a pass across the ice to Pavel Datsyuk who scored his fifth of the season.

Todd Bertuzzi scored next for Detroit. He took advantage of a puck that went off a Coyote skate in their own zone, made a couple of moves, and skated in alone and shot the puck past Smith in to extend Detroit’s lead to 2-0.

Jimmy Howard preserved Detroit’s 2-0 lead in the second period by stopping a Shane Doan penalty shot. Brendan Smith hooked Doan as he was in on a breakaway, and on the penalty shot Doan attempted to deke and slide the puck in under Howard’s pads but the Detroit netminder was there to deny him.

It was Howard’s ninth career penalty shot save in 13 regular season tries.

Halfway through the second period it appeared the Red Wings had tallied another goal, but the referees disallowed it. A Coyote stick struck Smith in the helmet after a Detroit shot on goal, causing him to go down. The puck ricocheted to Brian Lashoff and he shot it into the open net but due to Smith’s injury it was ruled no goal. Smith was attended to for several minutes by stayed in the game.

Despite being outshot 12-6 in the second, Phoenix capitalized on a late push at the end the period, as Antoine Vermette scored his third of the season to cut the Detroit lead to one. With one minute left, Vermette carried the puck into the Red Wings zone and sniped a shot into the top right corner past Howard. Rob Klinkhammer and Oliver Ekman-Larsson assisted on the goal.

Phoenix carried their momentum from Vermette’s goal into the third period, and 5:07 in Mike Ribiero put one past Howard on a rebound attempt off a shot from Mikkel Boedker to tie the game at two.

Shortly after Ribiero’s goal, Henrik Zetterberg attemped a pass in his own zone that deflected off a linesman’s skate and went straight to Lauri Korpikoski. Korpikoski found Martin Hanzal with a cross-ice pass and he skated in untouched on Howard, finding a hole on the right-hand side of the net to give the Coyotes the lead at 3-2.

Ribiero added his second of the night on a play similar to his first, as he found himself wide open in front of Howard’s crease with the puck on his stick and he put it into a near empty net.