Hurricanes hand Red Wings first loss of the season

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT –  It was going to happen sooner or later.

But, undoubtedly, Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill and his team envisioned their first loss being in a tightly-fought, one-goal game, nothing like what unfolded Friday night at Joe Louis Arena. The Carolina Hurricanes once again gave Detroit fits all night, coming away with two points in a 5-3 victory. Gustav Nyquist, Riley Sheahan and Teemu Pulkkinen scored for the Red Wings, while Jimmy Howard allowed five goals on 36 shots. Detroit fell to 3-1 on the season, while Carolina captured its first win in four games.

“I think the one thing that’s important in this league, in every league really but certainly important in this league, you have to be at your best every single night, and we weren’t at our best,” Blashill said. “And if we’re not at our best, it’s hard to win. We probably found a way to win in game two when we weren’t at our best, and it’s hard to do on a real consistent basis.”

Howard said it wasn’t a matter of overconfidence or anything of the sort, but rather just a bump in the long and winding road of an 82-game season.

“It’s an 82-game season, and you’re going to have some of these bumps along the way, and we’ve just got to have short-term memory here and get ready for Montreal,” Howard said.

Just 55 seconds into the tilt, Brock McGinn stepped in, took a shot in close from the left side that Howard stopped, but he followed through on his rebound to score his first NHL goal and give the Canes the 1-0 lead early.

That set the pace for the period and really told the story the rest of the way out, as Carolina outshot Detroit on the night, 36-20, and out-battled the Red Wings all night long.

The Hurricanes made it 2-0 early in the second period, as Justin Faulk scored a back-door powerplay goal that Howard had no chance on.

Carolina captain Eric Staal scored a rebound goal shortly after to extend the lead to 3-0, as the Hurricanes continued to have their way in the Red Wings zone.

At 14:02 of the period, however, Nyquist scored to get Detroit on the board, capitalizing on a 2-on-1 set up by a gorgeous Zetterberg backhand breakout pass. The assist was Zetterberg’s sixth – and eighth point – of the season.

And a mere 1:12 later, Sheahan popped home his first of the season, a rebound marker after a Tomas Tatar sent a wrister toward the net through traffic from the between the tops of the circles. That cut the Hurricanes lead to 3-2.

But Carolina’s Kris Versteeg struck at 6:25 of the third period after an abysmal Detroit powerplay to regain the two-goal lead for his team. Chris Terry scored one with just under seven minutes left to give the Canes a 5-2 lead. From behind the net, Terry banked the puck off the glove of Brad Richards and in.

Dylan Larkin extended his point streak to four games, as he threw a puck on net that Pulkkinen tipped home, with just over six minutes remaining, to make it a 5-3 contest. But that was as close as Detroit would get.

“I’m not concerned schematically,” Blashill said. “I think probably if there’s two areas… one is we’re turning too many pucks over, and that’s a little bit coming out of our end, but it’s a little bit all over the ice, and two is we’ve gotta create more shots.”

Notes: After the game, Blashill added that Danny DeKeyser and Darren Helm are game-day decisions for tomorrow’s game against Montreal.