Red Wings Bounce Back to Beat Blues

The Detroit Red Wings rallied from a 2-0 deficit Wednesday night to defeat the St. Louis Blues, 3-2, despite going scoreless on the power play for the first time in sixteen games.

The Blues took an early lead when Lee Stempniak backhanded the rebound of a Dean McAmmond shot from the right circle past Wings’ goalie Manny Legace at 8:37 of the first period.

With 5:06 remaining in the opening frame, Keith Tkachuk put the Blues up by two. Vladimir Orszagh threw a shot on net from the slot and it was tipped in front by Petr Cajanek. The puck trickled past Legace and Tkachuk jumped in from the side of the net to knock it home.

Detroit’s comeback began at 5:05 of the second period with a tic-tac-toe play.

Niklas Kronwall, playing in his first game of the season after returning from a knee injury, sent the puck from the top of the right circle to Henrik Zetterberg at the bottom of the left circle. Zetterberg sent a crossing pass to Mikael Samuelsson on the far side of the slot and Samuelsson sent a one-timer into the open net, with St. Louis netminder Curtis Sanford unable to get over to make the stop.

Former Blue Brendan Shanahan tied the game 8:10 into the third period, rifling a shot from the top of the left circle just inside the far goalpost.

The Swedes connected again to give the Wings the win with 3:55 remaining in the final period.

As a penalty to Andreas Lilja came to a close, Kronwall sent the puck into the neutral zone. Lilja jumped out of the penalty box, as both teams made line changes, leaving him wide open to take a pass from Zetterberg. Lilja broke in alone on Sanford, faking a chance before taking a shot that was knocked aside but Zetterberg drove to the net and knocked in the rebound.

Kronwall and Zetterberg each finished the night with two points and Pavel Datyuk’s assist on the Shanahan goal broke a four-game point drought.

Legace finished the game with 29 saves on 31 shots, while Sanford stopped 35 of 38 chances against.

Detroit was held scoreless on their two power play chances but held St. Louis without a goal on eight power play tries, including a twenty-second five-on-three in the third period.

The Red Wings will be back in action on Saturday when they visit the Colorado Avalanche.