Octopus Thrower
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The Detroit Red Wings come back to beat the Boston Bruins

By Bob Heyrman

DETROIT, MI - NOVEMBER 21: Andreas Athanasiou #72 of the Detroit Red Wings celebrates his third period goal with teammates Mike Green #25, Gustav Nyquist #14 and Frans Nielsen #51 during an NHL game against the Boston Bruins at Little Caesars Arena on November 21, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images)
DETROIT, MI - NOVEMBER 21: Andreas Athanasiou #72 of the Detroit Red Wings celebrates his third period goal with teammates Mike Green #25, Gustav Nyquist #14 and Frans Nielsen #51 during an NHL game against the Boston Bruins at Little Caesars Arena on November 21, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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The Detroit Red Wings start out slow but yet again come back with a 3-2 overtime victory over the Boston Bruins.  It also snaps a 7 game losing streak against Boston.

The story seems to start the same way all too often for the Detroit Red Wings this season.  A slow start leaves the team clawing from behind.  The Wings would play in their league-leading eighth overtime contest of the season.

The Wings need to figure out this slow start stuff.  You can’t survive in this league being heavily outshot every game.  The Wings have often found a way to overcome the sluggish starts but to be outshot 12-4 in the first period and 30-15 midway through the third period and expect to continue to survive is just false hope.

Yes, the team has had some terrific luck lately being able to come back and win games being down 2 goals going into the third period but you can’t continue to play like that.  Imagine what this team would look like if they were able to start games the way they’ve been able to finish.

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The Detroit Red Wings to know ones surprise leaned heavily on their goaltending early to keep themselves within striking distance.  Jimmy Howard continues to impress me with his outstanding early season play.  Again, he was the best Wings player on the ice.

Howard made spectacular save in overtime on the leagues leading goal scorer David Pasternak.  David Krejci made a terrific cross-ice pass finding DP wide open at the side of the goal.  He sort of one-time shoveled the pass on goal.  Howard slide right to left and robbed him.  The Wings would get a game-winner shortly after that save.  It seems to always work that way in hockey; a huge save turns into a goal shortly after for your team.

During the first period, the ice was tilted heavily in favor of the Bruins.  Howard kept the game at zero all after the first period.  The Bruins got a scrambled goal by Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson (JFK).  Howard made two pad saves during a scramble and found himself off to the right side of the goal. A plethora of players were crashing into the goal when JFK banked a shot off of Tyler Bertuzzi to make it 1-0 Boston.

Nearly 7 minutes later Bertuzzi would get even netting his sixth goal of the season.  Jensen and DeKeyser would each notch an assist on the goal.  Bert redirected a Jensen point shot past the netminder Tuukka Rask.

The game would head to the third period knotted at 1.  Chris Wagner, a member of the Bruins fourth line, gave his team the 2-1 lead at the 6:45 mark.  Athanasiou would answer the bell though for the Wings only 2:14 later.  Nyquist snapped a shot on Rask streaking in from the left wing, the rebound popped up in the air to the left of the goaltender in the blue paint.  AA although being heavily stick checked simultaneously buried the puck as it landed onto the ice into the gaping net.

The Detroit Red Wings second line seems to be gelling quite nicely.  AA, Neilsen and Gus seem to be comfortable with one another.  The group is dangerous and create a scoring chance nearly everytime they take to the ice.

Anthanasiou has found his way; he continues to play with tremendous confidence on that second line.  Remember he asked during training camp for more ice-time.  He’s gotten more ice and has delivered.  With a pair of goals tonight, AA has 9 on the season in his first 17 games of the season.

With Darren Helm out the Wings started Abby up with Larkin and Mantha.  As the game went on Bertuzzi, AA and Nyquist got work in place of Abby on that top line.  The Wings have that flexibility up front to run a couple of different combinations while they look to create a spark.

Next. The roster move that unfortunately will never happen. dark

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