Tatar’s OT goal gives Red Wings 4-3 win in Ottawa

By Tyler Barnes –

The Red Wings overcame a third-period push from the Ottawa Senators Monday night when Tomas Tatar scored a breakaway goal in overtime to give Detroit a much needed two points.

Tatar’s strike at the 2:04 mark of the extra period broke a 3-3 tie, giving the Wings a road victory in the process. Dylan Larkin, Gustav Nyquist and Riley Sheahan scored in regulation for Detroit, while Jimmy Howard recorded the win in goal.

Detroit out-shot Ottawa 37-25 in the contest, but allowed for a Senators two-goal comeback in the third period to force the three-on-three overtime session.

The Red Wings started the game with a strong first period after what could easily be described as a lackluster performance in Boston on Saturday. They tallied eight shots in the period, two of which resulting in goals from Larkin and Nyquist.

Larkin scored an eerily similar goal to his first trip to Ottawa earlier this year. After beating the defensemen wide, he faked as if he was going to wrap around the Ottawa net, but instead caught Craig Anderson cheating off the post and fired a shot from behind the goal line off of Anderson’s rear-end and into the net.

The Wings continued putting pressure on Anderson and beat him again less than two minutes later on a beautiful three-on-two play when Mike Green dropped a pass to Justin Abdelkader, who found Nyquist breaking to the net. Nyquist buried the puck top-shelf to give the Wings a 2-0 lead.

Late in the period, Larkin took an interference penalty to send Ottawa to a power play. As the penalty was about to expire, Mike Hoffman took a pass from Erik Karlsson and wired a shot from the point, beating a screened Jimmy Howard.

Play stayed deadlocked at 2-1 for much of the second period until Riley Sheahan pounced on a loose puck after Luke Glendening batted the puck lacrosse style up into the air. Sheahan was the first on it to give the Wings a 3-1 lead to take into the third period.

Detroit registered 15 shots on goal in the third period, but Ottawa beat Howard twice to tie the game at 3 and force overtime.

The Senators struck early at 3:13 of the third when Chris Wideman picked up a loose puck and sent a shot on goal that got deflected by a Red Wing player and over Howard’s shoulder.

The Senators’ Bobby Ryan scored a beautiful goal at 17:12 of the third when he stripped Luke Glendenning of the puck and made a move around Mike Green to his back hand and slid the puck past Howard to tie the game.

In the overtime period, Nyquist caught Cody Ceci cheating and sent a backhand pass to Tatar for a breakaway. Tatar didn’t spoil the opportunity, as he beat Anderson over his blocker to give the Wings the extra point in the contest.

With the extra point, the Red Wings sit at 9-8-1—good for a three-way tie for third in the Atlantic division.

Detroit returns to Joe Louis Arena on Wednesday to take on Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.