Red Wings toppled by Blackhawks Wednesday night

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT – The Chicago Blackhawks showed why they’re a Stanley Cup contender Wednesday night at Joe Louis Arena.

Fueled by multi-point outings from Brent Seabrook, Patrick Kane and rookie Artemi Panarin, the Blackhawks put on a dominant performance, taking a 5-2 decision over the Red Wings. Corey Crawford stopped 31 of 33 shots for Chicago in front of a raucous crowd filled with its fair share of Blackhawks fans. Brad Richards and Gustav Nyquist scored third-period goals for Detroit, and Petr Mrazek allowed five goals on 33 shots.

“They’re a good team, obviously a Stanley Cup contender the last handful of years here and have won a few Cups, so they’re a really good team,” Red Wings forward Justin Abdelkader said. “All you’ve got to do is look at the standings and obviously that Kane and Panarin and (Artem) Anisimov are having a great year, probably the best line throughout the year out of anyone, so they’re dangerous offensively. I think we could’ve made it harder on them in their D-zone, but they executed their game plan well.”

Just 2:23 into the opening frame, Seabrook took a cross-ice feed from fellow defenseman Erik Gustafsson and blasted a shot low on the short side that beat Mrazek. The Blackhawks held that 1-0 lead going into the locker room after 20 minutes.

At the halfway point of the middle frame, Jonathan Ericsson laid a hit on Andrew Desjardins just inside the Detroit blue line that sent the Chicago forward crashing awkwardly into the boards. That prompted Desjardins to go after Ericsson and the two engaged in a skirmish, which saw Desjardins end up with a four-minute roughing penalty and Ericsson with just two for roughing.

“I wasn’t sure if it was a bad hit, I know he kind of went in awkward in the boards,” Ericsson said. “I couldn’t really tell if it was a bad hit or not. I thought he was gonna come and challenge me. I asked him, but he didn’t say anything, so I didn’t think there was gonna be anything, but he dropped them on me there, so I wasn’t really ready for it.”

At 13:22 of the second stanza, Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg was called for tripping and just 47 seconds later, Niklas Kronwall was called for hooking Kane off a face-off.

With 1:13 of 5-on-3 time to work with, the Blackhawks made the Wings pay in what proved to be the game’s pivotal stretch.

First, during the 5-on-3 period, Kane set up Panarin for a cross-crease one-timer that Mrazek had no chance on. And on the remaining 5-on-4 man advantage, Kane ripped home his 37th of the season off a nifty spin-o-rama feed from former Michigan State defenseman Duncan Keith.

“The whole game really shifted on the 5-on-3 and 5-on-4 goals against,” Blashill said. “I thought actually in the second period we were playing good hockey, I thought they played better in the first, probably were a little fortunate only down 1-0. And actually I thought we were playing really good in the second, had some opportunities, had a power play, and then they get the two power-play goals and it really shifted the game.”

Despite Detroit outshooting Chicago 24-22 through two periods, it was Chicago that held the 3-0 lead. And the Blackhawks entered Wednesday night with an impressive 30-0-2 record when leading after two periods.

Though the Wings pushed back with a Richards power-play goal at 9:49 to bring Detroit to within one, Andrew Ladd scored at 14:03 to crush any hopes of a comeback, his first since coming back to Chicago via trade.

“It’s tough when you give that up,” Blashill said. “It did give us a little bit of life and you have an opportunity maybe at that point, so it was unfortunate, but again, the game to me really hinged on the specialty teams there in the second.”

Panarin then added his second of the game at 14:38 off a feed from Kane to put the Hawks up 5-1. Nyquist potted his 16th of the season to make it 5-2 with 2:09 remaining, but that was as close as Detroit would get.

The Wings turn around and face the Hawks again on Sunday in Chicago and said there are a number of things to key in on for that next rendezvous.

“I think we did a lot of good things, obviously we’ve got to stay out of the box; their power play is really good,” Ericsson said. “I think we did a lot of good things, but they’re a hard-working team as well as they’re really high-skilled, so I think getting out of our own end a little quicker, we’ve got to communicate a little better, so we get that puck and legs moving a little bit quicker. They got the pucks back a little too often on our blue line on the way out.”