Surprised by the Oilers

The Red Wings came to the Skyreach Centre in Edmonton fresh off a decisive victory against St. Louis, but weren’t able to control the game against the Oilers, which ended in a 1-1 tie.

In the first period, the Red Wings were mainly reacting to the Oilers’ strong play, rather than creating plays of their own. Edmonton scored the only goal of the period during a cross-checking penalty to Jiri Fischer. Dominek Hasek’s stick had been knocked away across the ice, and he flopped down to block a shot from Daniel Cleary. That shot stayed out, but the puck stayed loose between the goalpost and Hasek’s leg, and Anson Carter slapped it into the net.

Hasek was the one who kept the Red Wings within only one goal throughout the first; shots on net were nineteen to six in the Oilers’ favor after twenty minutes of play.

Detroit began to revitalize in the second period, holding Edmonton to only seven shots against Hasek and tying the game with a power play goal of their own. Sean Brown had taken away Kirk Maltby’s shorthanded scoring chance by tripping him up, and was sent off to the penalty box for two minutes.

The ensuing power play kept tight control of the puck. Pavel Datsyuk carried the puck into the zone and left it for Nick Lidstrom at center. Lidstrom passed over to Brendan Shanahan at the left point. Shanahan fired a hard one-timer on net, and Tomas Holmstrom tipped the puck past Tommy Salo.

The third period was hard fought by both teams. Both had scoring chances, but Hasek and Salo kept the pucks out of the net, forcing the game into overtime.

Play went end to end in the overtime, but again, the game was dominated by the goaltending and remained a tie.

Salo stopped twenty-one out of twenty-two shots. Hasek stopped thirty-five of thirty-six shots for his sixteenth game allowing one goal or less this season. The Red Wings will continue their road trip, heading to Calgary to face the Flames on Wednesday night.

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Steve Yzerman returned to Detroit from St. Louis because of a sore knee, and underwent a minor arthroscopic surgery today. He is expected to be out for ten to fourteen days.