Despite first NHL goal for Jurco, Red Wings lose again
By Stefan Kubus –
DETROIT – Tomas Jurco and Luke Glendening recorded both their first NHL points Tuesday night at Joe Louis Arena, but unfortunately, they didn’t amount to much for the injury-plagued Red Wings.
Propelled by Michigan alum Andrew Cogliano’s three-assist game, the Anaheim Ducks jumped out to an early lead and maintained that momentum – chasing Detroit starter Jonas Gustavsson out of the game in the process – to manhandle the Red Wings by a 5-2 score. Jurco scored his first NHL goal and Glendening notched his first NHL assist in what became Detroit’s sixth-straight loss.
“It didn’t go very well for us,” Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock said. “They shot the puck in the net and we lost momentum very fast, and didn’t have a very good effort from that point on.
A tough night for us, to say the least, very humbling. Anytime you’re in your home building and things go like that for you, it’s not a very good feeling. Obviously, we’ve got a bunch of kids here right now. We’ve got to provide better leadership and insulate them better than we did tonight.”
With eight regulars out of the lineup for Detroit Tuesday night, it was tough to compete toe-to-toe with the top team in the West. Forwards Justin Abdelkader (concussion), Henrik Zetterberg (back), Johan Franzen (concussion protocols), Stephen Weiss (groin), Darren Helm (shoulder) and Gustav Nyquist (groin) were all out, as was defenseman Danny DeKeyser (shoulder) and No. 1 goaltender Jimmy Howard (knee).
In what looked to be a strong start for his team, Jurco started the scoring for Detroit, as he deked forehand-backhand and scored between Hiller’s legs on a short breakaway for the 1-0 lead at 3:15 on a feed from Drew Miller.
“I got a great pass from [Miller] and somehow I found myself alone in front of the goalie, made a little move, put it between his legs five-hole and it went in, so it’s a great moment for me,” Jurco said.
But just 25 seconds later, Jakob Silfverberg tied the game up for Anaheim in his first game back from injury.
And at 5:29, Daniel Winnik found Nick Bonino at the back-door with a nice feed for a tap-in goal to make it 2-1 in favor of the Ducks.
Late in the period, defenseman Kyle Quincey boarded the Ducks’ Ryan Getzlaf hard into the boards from behind, receiving a five-minute major and game misconduct for the infraction. Getzlaf’s mouth was badly bleeding on the hit as his face smashed up against the glass on the hit. The Ducks captain later returned to the game after receiving stitches in the locker room.
Anaheim sniper Corey Perry broke in down the right side with 1:40 left during a 4-on-4 stretch and beat Gustavsson on the far side to extend the Anaheim lead to 3-1. Following Perry’s 22nd goal of the season, Gustavsson was pulled in favor of Petr Mrazek.
But with a single second to go in the first period, Sami Vatanen added another for the Ducks to not only extend the lead to 4-1, but also add to one headache of a period for Detroit.
“We know it’s tough going for us and we’ve got to just keep plugging away,” Red Wings forward Daniel Alfredsson said of the Wings’ deficit. “We can’t feel sorry or start thinking, ‘Here we go again.’ You’ve just got to focus on your next shift and keep pushing, especially now when it’s going hard for us. We know we need everybody; we need something and someone to do something to get us going.”
At 12:26 of the second period, Saku Koivu piled on another goal for the Ducks to make it 5-1.
Dan Cleary went on to pot his third of the season with 1:58 to play in the game for the 5-2 final. Though the goal made no difference for Detroit, Glendening showed excellent hustle to outmuscle defenseman Bryan Allen and Cogliano behind the net to find Cleary in front for the goal.
The damage done in the first period was too much to overcome, and the Red Wings’ head coach knew it.
“This one’s been over for a long time, let’s be honest, it’s not like we just lost in overtime or something,” Babcock said. “We got beat badly. This was over in the first, so we’ve had lots of time to lick our wounds here and get ready for tomorrow.”
Detroit faces off against Calgary at home on Thursday before heading off to Toronto on Saturday.
Notes: The Red Wings will practice outdoors at Comerica Park Wednesday at noon. The practice is open to fans, with the stadium gates opening at 11 a.m.