Red Wings fall to Canucks in shootout Friday night (with photos)

 

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT – The 800th all-time victory inside Joe Louis Arena continues to evade the Detroit Red Wings.

The Wings fell behind early and ultimately were defeated by the Vancouver Canucks in a shootout Friday night, a 4-3 final. Joakim Andersson scored his first of the year, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg also scored for Detroit, while Jimmy Howard stopped 37 of 40 shots against. East Lansing native Ryan Miller picked up the win in goal for the Canucks, stopping 25 of 28.

Detroit head coach Jeff Blashill claimed responsibility for his team playing a lackluster first half of the game.

“My job is to make sure we’re prepared to go out at the start of the game; I didn’t do my job,” Blashill said. “That was, I thought, our worst game maybe all season… My job is to make sure the team is ready to go, that we’re prepared to go, and we weren’t, so that falls on me.

“We’ve got to look at it and say, ‘What happened?’ and ‘Why?’ You can’t play with that lack of effort. You can’t come not ready to play against a team that – they’ve been struggling a bit so they’re fighting for their lives a little bit. I know it’s early in the season, but everybody understand how critical every point is. I don’t know why, but I know it’s on me, but we better do a better job of that come Sunday.”

Photos by Michael Miller/MiHockey

With a little over 12 minutes remaining in the opening period, Howard came up with a big glove save on Alex Burrows at the side of the goal, as Burrows had a great rebound opportunity. And though he couldn’t get all he wanted on the shot due to a rolling puck, it still took a great positional effort from Howard to keep the game scoreless, an especially big stop as Vancouver held a big shot advantage.

Howard also came up with an important stick save on a Bo Horvat wrap attempt when it looked like Horvat had an open net.

With just over a minute to play in the period, a bounce off the end boards came right out in front, having bounced over the stick of Howard and onto the stick of rookie Jared McCann, who buried his seventh of the season to give the Canucks the 1-0 lead.

Sven Baertschi made it 2-0, another late-period goal, as he struck at 17:08 of the middle frame by finishing off a nifty cross-slot feed from Horvat.

But this time around, the Wings were able to respond before the period ended, as Andersson redirected home his first goal of the season, finishing off a pretty passing play with Luke Glendening and Danny DeKeyser. That cut the deficit back to one heading into the third period.

“It’s good to get a goal and that’s where we talk about to get there and get the pucks there and get the people there, too, to score more goals,” Andersson said.

And at 3:29 of the final frame, Brendan Smith found Datsyuk with a pass at the back door for a tap-in goal, his third of the season, to knot things up at two aside.

But Radim Vrbata responded shortly after to take back the one-goal lead for his Canucks, as he corralled a rebound in the high slot and then skated across the slot, waiting out Howard before depositing the puck into the wide-open net.

Following an unsuccessful power-play attempt, the Wings managed to continue to pressure the Canucks, keeping the puck in the Vancouver zone long after the penalty’s expiration. However, it ultimately proved fruitless.

And then the Wings got themselves into penalty trouble, facing a 4-on-3 and also a 5-on-3 late in the third period. But a monumental penalty-kill effort kept the Canucks off the board, perhaps the only other bright spot in the Red Wings’ game besides Howard’s play.

“Huge moment for the penalty kill, especially you 4-on-3, 5-on-3, those are big, big moments any time of the game, but certainly at that point,” Blashill said. “I think everybody in the building knew that if they scored, it was going to be real tough, so it was a big, big moment so good for them.”

The Red Wings captain came through for his team following the kill. With Howard on the bench for the extra attacker, Zetterberg took the puck off the face off, moved in on the right side down low and tucked a short-side shot into the top shelf over Miller to tie things up at three with just 1:07 to play.

“It was a good face off by Pav there, and I just walked down,” Zetterberg said. “There wasn’t much else and just tried to get it on net, and it was just nice to see it go in.”

With nothing going in overtime, it took a shootout to solve the contest. Playing in his first game of the season, Linden Vey potted the game-winning goal to secure the second point for his team.

Detroit will have another crack at win No. 800 inside Joe Louis Arena when the Wings host the Calgary Flames Sunday night.