With an atmosphere straight out of the playoffs, Tuesday’s game
between the Red Wings and the Sharks was as close as expected. The
Wings had the early jump with the puck but fell behind after
allowing a power-play goal and ended up playing catch-up hockey all
night. Danny Cleary scored twice, but the Sharks prevailed, 4-3,
ending the Wings’ five-game winning streak and improving to 2-0 at
the Joe this season.
DETROIT
With an atmosphere straight out of the playoffs, Tuesday’s game between the Red Wings and the Sharks was as close as expected.
The Wings had the early jump with the puck but fell behind after allowing a power-play goal and ended up playing catch-up hockey all night. Danny Cleary scored twice, but the Sharks prevailed, 4-3, ending the Wings’ five-game winning streak and improving to 2-0 at the Joe this season.
Follow Free Lance Sports on Twitter.
“I thought we started good,” Cleary said. “We were in the box a little too much in the first. They got some momentum, got that goal. They played well. We didn’t play great at all. We had some chances offensively, but I think defensively, we were too loose.”
Henrik Zetterberg put Detroit within a goal with 1:51 left in regulation when he scored on a power play, firing a wrist shot from the edge of the left circle. Johan Franzen pounced on a rebound in the last minute, but the Wings couldn’t pull off a comeback against the team that bounced them in the second round of last year’s playoffs.
“They’ve got a good team, talented forwards, big and strong, and they’re good on the cycle,” Cleary said. “That fourth goal was key, because we were coming, but I just didn’t think we played as solid defensively as we have the past five games. They definitely were the better team. They outworked us in different shifts and got to loose pucks a little better.”
Jimmy Howard faced 43 shots and didn’t give up a bad goal until the last one, when Devin Setoguchi fire a shot from several feet above the right circle that beat Howard cleanly on his blocker side.
“He just wired it,” Howard said. “It was a good pass, right in his wheelhouse, and he got all of it.
“I don’t think we played bad at all. I think they just executed a little bit more than we did.”
Joe Thornton scored his 300th career goal when he converted on a power play late in the first period, and he set up the game-winner.
Shortly after Cleary had tied the game for the first time in the second period, Ryane Clowe intercepted a bad shot by Jonathan Ericsson and rushed up the middle to score on a breakaway. Thornton’s wrap-around attempt went in off Setoguchi at 18:43.
“The two goals in the second period, I didn’t like very much,” coach Mike Babcock said. “But the bottom line is, they made more plays than we did. Their first 10 minutes in the third period were better than our first 10 minutes.”
The Wings were the better team the first 10 minutes of the game, but got into trouble when Nicklas Lidstrom was called for high-sticking Logan Couture at 11:28, which, with Ericsson already serving four minutes for bloodying Couture, gave the Sharks a two-man advantage for two minutes.
The Wings got a standing ovation after killing off the entire stretch, but they couldn’t convert off the momentum.
“We came up short, but I thought it was a very close game,” Lidstrom said. “I thought they were a little bit harder in front of both nets to get the win tonight.”
The Wings, 5-3 winners at HP Pavilion back in November, meet the Sharks again March 3 at San Jose.
— Story by Helene St. James, Detroit Free Press
