Winnipeg Jets Break Detroit Red Wings Hearts in Shootout 5-4

Valentines day in the NHL saw the Detroit Red Wings(31-13-9)  taking on the Winnipeg Jets(28-19-10) in an evening tilt.  Coach Mike Babcock tabbed recently returned from injury Jimmy Howard for the start in net, while the Jets were looking to new additions Tyler Myers and Drew Stafford to add a spark during their recent struggles while icing Michael Hutchinson to back stop the Jets.

More from Octopus Thrower

• Detroit Red Wings forward Carter Mazur injured in Prospect Tournament
• Detroit Red Wings: What does Klim Kostin’s role look like in 2023-24?
• Detroit Red Wings: 3 players who will make biggest impact in first year
• The Detroit Red Wings need Andrew Copp to start fast in 2023-24
• Detroit Red Wings had a busy off-season; but was it enough?

1st Period  Winnipeg 1 Detroit 1

As has been the case for the last handful of games Detroit came out flat.  With declarations from Babcock that he wanted the team to have a better effort than the Pittsburgh game.  To the Jets credit they came out swinging, figuratively and literally, hitting everything that moved(including punching several Wings players) and hemming the Wings in their own zone.  Just 2:36 into the game Chris Thorburn deflected a shot from Jacob Trouba from the point that squeaked by a Jimmy Howard.  The Jets controlled the play after the goal but the Red Wings began to rally behind the play of Pavel Datsyuk and his line mates.  With steals by Gustav Nyquist and Darren Helm Detroit worked their way out of their own zone.

Alexi Marchenko did a marvelous job shutting down the neutral zone and Howard was able to stop what few shots did get to him.  Obviously frustrated by the turn of events Winnipeg ramped up their already aggressive physical play and took 2 simultaneous penalties in the corner behind Howard.  The Wings would get a 5v3 power play where the unit of Abdelkator, Datsyuk, Kronwall, Zetterberg and Tatar controlled the play for the 1 minute and 36 seconds ending only when Niklas Kronwall blasted the puck on a one-timer into the top right corner of the net.  Detroit was unable to capitalize on their remaining power play time ending the period out shooting the Jets 16-4.

2nd Period Winnipeg 3 Detroit 3

Momentum was still on the Red Wings side as they jumped out to an early 3-1 lead. Tyler Myers slashed the stick out of Justin Abdelkators hands earning himself a 2 minute penalty. The blazing hot power play clicked again after Darren Helm scored on his own rebound.  Moments later a puck shot by Darren Helm deflected off of Datsyuk and into the top left corner of the net.  That would the only offense in the period for Detroit as Winnipeg reestablished their fore-check and were able to push the play back into the Red Wings zone.

The Wings then shot themselves in the foot on a bad line change allowing Myers to skate in on net and get a shot off, the ensuing rebound found its way to Blake Wheelers stick who had a wide open net to shoot in.  Moments later Detroit took aim at their other foot when Marchenko took a bad “interference” penalty.  The result was a Drew Stafford goal on the power play.  Winnipeg was soaring sky-high at this point and even a Detroit power play didn’t faze them as they easily shut down Detroit in the neutral zone.  The period ended with the Refs gifting a weak holding call on Jonathan Ericsson with carry over heading into the 3rd.  Shots were 22 Winnipeg 20 for Detroit, several of the Jets shots came on Detroit’s floundering 2nd power play of the period.

3rd Period/OT/SO Winnipeg 5 Detroit 4

Winnipeg began the period with 1:37 left on the power play.  Detroit was able to kill the power play with a combination of bad luck for the Jets and regaining some of the solid play the displayed earlier in the game.  It was not long after that Tomas Jurco slew footed an easily toppled Dustin Byfuglien.  Andrew Ladd would capitalize on the power play sending a laser of a wrist shot past Howard.  The teams traded chances until Brenden Smith took maters into his own hand.  He took a pass from Danny Dekeyser and lugged the puck from the blue line and chased down his own dumped puck into the corner.  Smith then found the Magic Man coming in off a line change and he made no mistakes burying the puck to tie the game.  The Wings escaped the period with a 4-4 tie.

In OT neither team established much of a presence, trading chances back and forth.  With 2:20 left in the over time period, Kyle Quincey was whistled for roughing.  That’s right, somewhere along the lines of this game roughing became a penalty again.  Luke Glendening, Drew Miller and Niklas Kronwall played like heroes in front of Howard during the frantic play.  Howard was lights out keeping his team in the game and bringing the match to be decided in a shootout.  Howard continued his stellar play and managed to stop 3 of 4 attempts in the shootout, an area he normally struggles(Mightily) but unfortunately Stafford was able to score while the Wings were unable to best Hutchinson.

Final Recap

The Wings were unable to control the game long enough to  remove the aggressive fore-check from the Jets arsenal.  The refs didn’t do them any favors but Howard let in some soft goals as well.  Howard seemed to get better as the game went on.  First star award has to go to the Datsyuk line which dominated play and were one of the only bright spots of the night.  All in all Detroit played an ok game and got a much-needed point against a team that seemed bent on running them into third row.  Going forward the team needs to find a way to get goals out of third and fourth lines if they want to win more games.  Howard should also be able to use this a solid building block to get back from his injury.