Red Wings bounce back, beat Stars Thursday night at The Joe
Photos by Kaileigh Brammer/MiHockey
By @SKubus –
DETROIT – After a poor performance Tuesday, the Red Wings turned in a solid bounce-back performance against Dallas Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena.
Led by multi-point outings from six different players, Detroit improved to 15-6-5 on the season with a 5-2 victory over the Stars, just two days after the Wings fell to the struggling Florida Panthers. Darren Helm scored a pair, while Kyle Quincey recorded his first goal of the season. Jimmy Howard stopped 22 shots for his 12th win on the season.
“We weren’t very happy leaving the rink the other night about our work ethic and our compete and our preparation, and tonight I thought we were good in all aspects,” head coach Mike Babcock said. “We had some good games from guys and won the game.”
Stephen Weiss continued his resurgence, recording a goal and two assists to give him nine points in his first six games back from injury.
“He’s put in a lot of time to get healthy,” Helm said of Weiss’ return. “He’s worked hard to get back in the lineup and he’s doing a great job with his time on the ice.”
Helm skated out from behind the net, turned toward the net, fired from a bad angle and somehow snuck it past Rynnas. But a mere 15 seconds later, Jordie Benn found Colton Sceviour behind the Detroit defense crashing the net on the back door for an easy goal to tie things up at one aside.
Detroit worked a tic-tac-toe play to perfection, as Tomas Jurco dished a hard pass across the Dallas zone to Riley Sheahan, who sent the puck diagonally down low to Weiss and he slammed it home for his fourth goal in his sixth game back with 8:46 remaining in the opening frame.
Jurco’s assist marked his eighth point in 11 games since returning to the lineup after being a healthy scratch for three straight in early November.
“I’m trying to be a little stronger with the puck and skate a lot,” Jurco said. “The pucks are just bouncing my way and I didn’t have that luck at the beginning of the season. The only thing is I’ve gotta score a little more, but it’s going to come eventually, just got to keep doing what I’m doing.”
Pavel Datsyuk extended the lead to 3-1 with a power play marker–to give Detroit a power play goal in six straight games–on a feed from Weiss. That goal was Detroit’s 24th of the year with the man advantage, tying Pittsburgh for the NHL’s most.
It appeared Dallas tied it up eight minutes into the middle frame, but after video review, it was determined that Stars defenseman Trevor Daley batted the puck in with his glove.
Former Plymouth Whalers standout Tyler Seguin scored his league-leading 19th of the season with a low wrister from the point to pull his Stars to within a single goal through 40 minutes.
But Detroit ensured that Dallas didn’t get any further than that, continuing the offensive barrage in the final period. Quincey recorded his first of the season, blasting home a slap shot from the right point at 7:39, with the assists went to Sheahan and Weiss.
Helm added his second of the game from Tatar and Datsyuk at 13:07, deking Rynnas after he was left all alone in front of the net with plenty of time.
“It was a big bounce-back game for sure,” Helm said. “Nobody was happy in the dressing room with the way we played, and today was way better.”