Tatar’s OT goal prevents disastrous weekend for Red Wings

By @MichaelCaples –

In case you needed a reminder, Friday night’s game didn’t go so well for the Red Wings.

Detroit held a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes of play against the New York Islanders, and then a 5-2 lead by the 9:54 mark of the third period.

Then, Tyler Bertuzzi was whistled for a slashing penalty – a match penalty for a whack on Cal Clutterbuck (questionable call, to be sure).

On that ensuing power play, the Islanders scored four – yes, four – goals on the same man-advantage. Mike Green scored to force overtime before Brock Nelson ended it in OT for the home team. You can see the highlights below.

Today was almost more of the same for the Wings in our nation’s capital, but they ended up on the right side of the final outcome.

Alex Ovechkin opened the scoring for Washington before Justin Abdelkader, Luke Glendening, Anthony Mantha and Tomas Tatar all scored to give the Wings a 4-1 lead heading into the final frame of play.

There, the Capitals scored three times – two even-strength goals before Nicklas Backstrom’s power-play goal officially tied the game with 17 seconds remaining in regulation.

Luckily for the Hockeytown faithful, Tatar scored in overtime to keep the weekend from being even worse for Detroit (the snowfall was enough).

Highlights from tonight’s game:

“I was worried it might be the same story as against the Islanders,” Tatar said via NHL.com. “You don’t want that to happen. It felt really bad after the game [Friday] and if you have two in a row like that, that would be just miserable. So, I’m glad we got the two points.”

The Red Wings are now 22-23-9 on the season and eight points out of the final wildcard spot in the East.

“You don’t like giving up the lead, but I thought the story of the game for me was, I think a lot of people expected us to fold after a tough game,” coach Jeff Blashill said via the league site. “And we’ve had some tough ones. You get kicked and you get back up, and I thought we got back up real well.”