By @StefanKubus –
DETROIT – Despite what happened in the previous two months, December has told a new tale for both the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens, a trend that continued Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena.
With a 3-2 victory over the Habs, Detroit improved to 4-0-1 in December, while the Canadiens slid to 1-4-0 in the month. More importantly, Detroit extended its point streak to 12 games and pulled to within four points of the Atlantic Division lead, which Montreal holds at 41 points. Darren Helm led the way for Detroit with two goals, Justin Abdelkader potted a power-play goal and Petr Mrazek stopped 23 of 25 shots in the contest to pick up his ninth win on the year.
“It’s nice to see that we find a way to get points, and tonight we got two in a division game,” Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg said.
“It’s a long way to go. We’re playing well. We play like this, we’re going to get our points and then we’ll be there in the end.”
Photos by Andrew Knapik/MiHockey
Detroit head coach Jeff Blashill said it was nice to see Helm get rewarded for his efforts of late.
“I thought Darren was the best player on the ice, I thought he was great from the drop of the puck,” Blashill said. “He’s got such get-up-and-go, he was impactful all night, great job by him. He’s played real well in the last stretch of eight, nine games, he’s been real good overall. It’s good for him to get rewarded with some goals, always feels good to score, and he looks like he’s really coming.”
It took a great individual effort to break the deadlock in this one and Helm delivered for Detroit with 8:42 left in the middle frame. Helm first dragged his back leg to stay onside as the puck was crossing the Montreal blue line, then caught a puck out of mid-air that Luke Glendening chipped over the head of defenseman Tom Gilbert, set it down and roofed it far side past Montreal netminder Dustin Tokarski.
But Sven Andrighetto answered for Montreal just 2:03 later, poking home the rebound of a Charlie Hudon shot. The initial shot sneaked past Mrazek and was sitting in the crease for the taking. That evened things up at one aside. Detroit received a power play just seconds after with a chance to get it back, but the man-advantage ultimately proved fruitless.
Mrazek stopped a pair of Tomas Plekanec breakaways in that middle frame, too, keeping the Habs at bay while his team continued to grind for the next goal.
“I thought Petr played very well,” Blashill said. “We didn’t give up much in the first, but we gave up two big-time chances. I don’t know if, in the end, if we gave up a ton of chances, but we gave up some real quality chances, too many for me. We’re going to have to tighten up defensively to have long-term success here, so that’s something we’ll talk about for sure, but I thought Petr did a great job.”
That’s how things stood after 40 minutes, and you wouldn’t expect anything less from the Atlantic Division’s two top teams.
At 4:30 of the final frame, Fleischmann broke the tie, as the former Red Wings draft pick ripped a slap shot home from between the circles that beat Mrazek on the far side. Replay revealed that, on the initial zone entry, Fleischmann was just onside by as close a margin as you could have, dragging the heel of his blade along the inner edge of the Detroit blue line.
Detroit had another power-play opportunity shortly after, but like the ones before it in the game, that one was just as lackluster.
But on their fourth man-advantage of the game, the Red Wings broke through. Zetterberg threw a puck on goal from the left side down low and it went off Abdelkader’s foot and in, a clean redirection.
“I tried to turn my skate, I wasn’t trying to kick it forward, so I thought it was a good goal,” Abdelkader said. “He took my stick away there obviously, and Z just kind of threw it in front there, and I just tried to get a skate on it and fortunate it went in.”
And just 1:10 following Abdelkader’s tenth of the season, Helm potted his second of the game, breaking through the slot, waiting out Tokarski and depositing the puck into the gaping net for his third of the season and the 3-2 lead.
A PK Subban delay-of-game minor gave Detroit a power play with under two minutes to play. Montreal pulled Tokarski to make it 5-on-5, but Detroit was able to hold the Habs at bay.
Detroit will look to extend its point streak to 13 games Friday night against the New Jersey Devils.
“We can be better than we played, and we’re gonna have to be, but it’s a big two points against obviously a team we’re chasing,” Blashill said.