Red Wings close out homestand with 5-4 OT win over Nashville (with photos)
By @StefanKubus –
The Red Wings closed out a six-game homestand with a come-from-behind 5-4 overtime victory over the Nashville Predators at Joe Louis Arena Saturday night to give them points in ten consecutive games.
The offensively-dynamic Nashville Predators’ blue line led the league in goals by defensemen heading into Saturday night’s game, and it was they who carried the Preds’ offense in this one, combining for three goals and three assists. Nashville captain Shea Weber notched his first career hat trick, and a Ryan Ellis point shot led to a tip-in goal, but Gustav Nyquist’s OT game-winner made the difference in the end, scoring 1:41 into the extra frame on a breakaway. Dylan Larkin and Tomas Tatar also scored for Detroit, while Brad Richards scored his first in a Red Wings sweater. Petr Mrazek picked up the win between the pipes.
The Red Wings improved to 15-8-4 with the win and have now posted a 7-0-3 mark in their last ten outings.
Photos by Andrew Knapik/MiHockey
Throughout the past handful of games, Richards had a number of quality chances to score his first as a Red Wing, and he finally found the back of the net Saturday to open the game’s scoring. Tomas Tatar entered the Nashville zone with the puck and dropped it off to Waterford native Dylan Larkin. Larkin then shuffled it down the boards back to Tatar, who stepped in and found Richards in the high slot. Richards took the shot, and Predators netminder Pekka Rinne made the initial save, but the rebound went off a defender’s leg and in with just 39 seconds left in the opening frame.
The second period brought four goals, and the Preds scored the first three of those.
The first of Weber’s pair came just 1:03 into the period with Tomas Jurco serving the remainder of his late, first-period penalty for Detroit. Weber stepped into a booming slap shot near the top of the left circle and wired it top shelf past Mrazek. Just 1:50 later, a point shot by Ellis was beautifully tipped home by Viktor Arvidsson to give his team its first lead of the contest.
At 15:28, Weber added his second, another high shot that, this time, found the glass behind Mrazek, but then rebounded and bounced off Mrazek and barely across the line to give Nashville an insurance goal and make it a 3-1 game.
But 1:36 after the second Weber marker, Tatar popped home his tenth of the season – to tie Larkin for the team lead – tipping home a brilliant Mike Green slap pass from the point that fooled Rinne and the Preds. That cut the Nashville lead to only one heading into the locker room after 40 minutes.
Weber completed the hat trick at 8:03 of the final frame, another slap shot from the point, this one beating Mrazek low. All three were power-play goals. Weber became just the seventh defenseman to record a hat trick since 2009 – Ryan Suter, PK Subban, Lubomir Visnovsky, Zdeno Chara, Ed Jovanovski and Nicklas Lidstrom were the others.
But Larkin responded for Detroit just 1:16 later to keep the Wings in the game, a highlight-reel tally that saw him split a pair of Predators before ripping a wrister that beat Rinne on the far side. It marked Larkin’s 11th of the season – all even-strength goals – and also made him a plus-two on the night, boosting his league-leading rating to plus-19.
With just over two minutes remaining in the third period and Ellis in the box for boarding Darren Helm, Gustav Nyquist fired a shot from the right circle that bounced off of Abdelkader and in to even things up at four aside. That gave Abdelkader his fourth goal in his past three games and ninth on the season.
In overtime, the Predators had a 3-on-1 coming down after two Red Wings were caught in the Nashville zone. Weber nearly had his fourth of the game, but couldn’t get a good shot off on the play. The puck came back the other way, and Nyquist potted the overtime winner with a low wrist shot.
The Wings head to the nation’s capital to take on the Washington Capitals Tuesday night before hosting the Montreal Canadiens Thursday night.