Photos by Michael Miller/MiHockey
By @StefanKubus –
DETROIT – Despite throwing 70 shots toward the Colorado Avalanche goal, the Red Wings were unable to pick up the win Friday night.
The Wings recorded 45 shots on goal, saw another 25 blocked and 17 miss the net, but Detroit’s Friday-night duel with the Avs at Joe Louis Arena in a Stadium Series tune-up resulted in a 3-2 shootout loss. Jonathan Ericsson and Pavel Datsyuk scored in regulation for Detroit, Justin Abdelkader notched a pair of helpers, while Petr Mrazek stopped 19 of 21. Colorado’s Semyon Varlamov was lights-out, as he stopped 43 of 45 shots he faced, Matt Duchene scored his 25th of the season, and Blake Comeau potted a goal in regulation and the game-winning shootout marker.
“We always talk about process; I thought from a process standpoint, we were, in a lot of ways, excellent to be honest with you,” Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill said. “I thought our energy level was great, I thought we won tons of puck races and puck battles in the offensive zone, I thought we shot the puck well, I thought we had net presence. The puck just didn’t go in as much as we would’ve liked it to.”
Abdelkader added that games like that are going to go both for and against the Wings throughout the course of the season.
“There’ll probably be a few games to finish the season where maybe we get outshot and we find a way to win,” Abdelkader said. “That’s how this game goes sometimes. There’s a lot of puck luck that goes along with it, so just got to stick with our game plan and keep moving forward here.”
The Wings recorded 45 shots on goal, one shy of their season high, and also had 17 attempts that missed the net. Blashill said he liked the team’s willingness to simply get pucks to the net.
“I thought we were shot-ready the whole night,” Blashill said. “I thought we did a good job delivering the puck to the net. They’re going to have some blocks, certainly. When you spend that much time in someone’s O-zone, they’re gonna have some blocks for sure, and offensively, I was happy with all parts of our game. We just made a couple mistakes that ended in our net. We should’ve scored more goals, we didn’t tonight. That’s the way it goes sometimes.”
With 10:33 to play in the opening frame, Mikhail Grigorenko made a quick pass from the right corner in the Red Wings’ zone as he circled around the net right on the tape of Matt Duchene in the slot, who had an easy tap-in for the game’s opening goal.
At 4:09 of the second stanza, Ericsson took a pass from Abdelkader at the left point and threw a low wrister on goal that beat Varlamov through traffic. It marked just Ericsson’s second of the season, but it evened things up for Detroit. The Wings outshot the Avs, 27-11 through two periods.
But Comeau regained the lead for the Avs at 5:30 of the third period, jumping off the bench and firing a shot from the high slot that squeaked through Mrazek and barely crossed the goal line.
The resilient Wings responded again, however, as Datsyuk scored a PP marker at 9:51 of the third period, finishing off a pretty passing play with Henrik Zetterberg and Abdelkader.
“I knew he would be coming in on net there, he was all alone and obviously you get the puck on his stick, he’s going to make some great plays, and he did that, got it to the backhand and scored,” Abdelkader said.
The teams battled to a shootout, where it was Comeau who scored the game-deciding goal on Mrazek.
The Red Wings will face the Boston Bruins Sunday afternoon in the third of three division games this week.