CALGARY, Alberta -- The Red Wings got goals from their much-maligned third liners Wednesday night, with Mike Modano and Justin Abdelkader scoring to lead Detroit to a 2-1 win over the Calgary Flames.
Modano hadn't scored since the season-opener. Abdelkader made only his second appearance of the season, skating on the third line in place of Jiri Hudler, who was a healthy scratch for the second consecutive game.
The Flames opened the scoring on a four-on-three with 4:02 remaining in the first period. Mark Giordano one-timed a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle past Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard to make it 1-0.
Modano tied the game just 1:54 into the second. Danny Cleary fought off two Flames in the neutral zone to get the puck to Modano, who raced in alone and snapped a shot from the left faceoff dot past Miikka Kiprusoff's glove.
Abdelkader scored a similar goal with 7:55 remaining in the period. Pavel Datsyuk gained the zone and dealt the puck to a rushing Abdelkader, who moved up to the left side of the slot and snapped a shot past Kiprusoff on the glove side.
Jimmy Howard made 16 saves on 17 shots in his first game back after missing two with back spasms. Kiprusoff stopped 31 of Detroit's 33 shots.
Calgary's goal was the only power play goal of the night. The Flames had seven tries with the extra attacker, including a four-minute power play in the game's closing minutes. The Red Wings also had seven power plays.
Detroit will be back in action on Friday when they visit the Edmonton Oilers.
No news on this one since Monday's injury report. A month into the season and we get to swear about Western Canadian start times. Joy.
Second of four meetings with this being the first of the season in Calgary.
Howard and Ericsson are expected back with Osgood still out, MacDonald will be the back-up Meanwhilefor the Flames, Adam Pardy, Daymond Langkow, Ryan Stone, Ales Kotalik, and Raitis Ivanans will be out for Calgary and David Moss could make his season debut.
Red Wings are second in the NHL with a 91.2 PK percentage and Mikka Kiprusoff is just 33 wins away from passing former Red Wing Mike Vernon for the all time lead in wins as a Flame.
You already know everything else...
Did the time get changed for this game?
First game I can watch for like two weeks and I don't think I'll be able to make it through the first period :/ Curse you, time zones.
Yeah, I think the time got changed. It's also on FSD now rather than FS+.
Mickey's complaining but I thought that hit would be called.
Great chance by Cleary.
Babcock not happy with the ref about something there. Uncommon.
Holy sh*t, what did Jimmy just do there?
Second power play unit looked a lot better than the first there. I really like Stuart on that unit rather than Kindl.
That was odd.
Gift.
Why wasn't Iginla called for hauling down Stuart after everything that's been called so far?
Mikey! Great shot and a great job by Cleary to get him the puck.
Jesus, Justin. What a shot.
Some of these penalty calls are suspect. 
That should have been a goal. Wow.
Fantastic stop by Kiprusoff.
So Salei gets called for the high stick caused by him getting slew-footed?
Huge kill there.
That was about as good of a game as the Wings could have gotten. Choppy because of the special teams, would have liked to see a PPG, but overall a really solid game.
Mike Modano
Credit: Clark Rasmussen
Comment on this Article
You must be logged in to add your comment.