Red Wings Grab Win Against Penguins, Blackhawks Move Forward without Kane
On Thursday the Detroit Red Wings (32-24-13) grabbed a last second score–literally–by Daniel Alfredsson to take a lead and ultimately defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins (45-19-5) 5-4 before overtime expired. For the night, Alfredsson had two goals.
It was a much-needed victory for the Red Wings as they seek to keep their postseason streak alive and hit 23. The win didn’t come easily in this volatile game. Detroit took a 2-0 lead; the Penguins came back for a 3-2 advantage and finally with 7:43 remaining, the Red Wings again led at 4-3 before Pittsburgh tied the game with two minutes remaining.
Daniel Alfredsson
The game was also riddled with penalties and in a seven-minute period, the Penguins had four.
Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said of the game via the Associated Press, “We made some mistakes, they made mistakes, but we stayed with it and found a way to win a game. That was a big win for us.”
For the night Jimmy Howard had stopped 39 shots for Detroit.
The win came for the team as Jonathan Ericsson was absent thank to a Wednesday surgery on his left hand’s middle finger. He will be sidelined for a month or so but will it really matter when he returns? The Red Wings sit in the wild card hunt behind the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Rangers as well as the Washington Capitals who sit on the bubble; they will play each of these teams at least twice.
The near-term looks challenging as Detroit will play on the road against the Columbus Blue Jackets (March 25) and Toronto (March 29). Good luck with those games. On Saturday they’ll play the Minnesota Wild (36-23-11).
Detroit sits at 20/1 to win the 2014 Eastern Conference and 40/1 to win the 2014 Stanley Cup.
As for the Penguins, their eyes are on the Boston Bruins (47-17-5) in a battle for the Eastern Conference’s top seed. They sit four points behind them as the Bruins have a 10-game win streak going.
On Saturday, Pittsburgh will play the Tampa Bay Lightning (39-24-7). The Penguins sit at 13/2 to win this year’s Stanley Cup while the Bruins have 11/2 odds.
Blackhawks vs. Hurricanes
Riding off the high of their most recent win, a 4-0 victory over the St. Louis Blues, it is proving to be very short lived as the Chicago Blackhawks have lost their star forward, Patrick Kane. His injury came in the second period of the St. Louis game after a collision with Blues player Brenden Morrow. This knocked Kane out for the rest of the game as well as a minimum of three weeks.
Patrick Kane
On Friday, the team place Kane on long-term IR. Under this designation, he will miss 10 games minimum and 24 days. In addition the team called up forwards Teuvo Teravainen and Jeremy Morin, reported ESPN.
The player will be hard to replace and coach Joel Quenneville said of Kane, “He’s a special player. We’ll work our way through this. It’s a huge loss for us.”
Along with Kane’s injury–on a positive note–the St. Louis game did bring Quenneville his 700th league win. Goalie Corey Crawford have 23 saves and from the victory, the Blackhawks are now just six points from the Blues. They’ll also have to keep their eyes on the Colorado Avalanche (44-20-6) who are nipping on their heels as they sit one point behind.
They team will quickly look ahead to their Friday night game against the Carolina Hurricanes (30-30-9).
Carolina is on a hunt for an Eastern Conference wild-card bid but they’ll need to leap over five teams to get there. On Tuesday, the team beat Columbus, 3-1, who is one team in their path. Anton Khudobin had a career-high 46 saves with a goal.
Both teams have the postseason on their minds but Chicago gets the win (-225, 5.5 o/u).
