Wings Win with Third-period Comeback

The Detroit Red Wings scored three goals in the third period to come from behind and defeat the Dallas Stars Monday night in the final game at Joe Louis Arena before the start of the playoffs.

Detroit had allowed goals in the late in the first period and early in the third to fall behind, 2-0, but scored three times in the game’s final seven minutes to erase the deficit and pull into the lead.

With 6:59 remaining in regulation, Johan Franzen deflected a shot from the blue line by Niklas Kronwall past Dallas goalie Marty Turco to put the Red Wings on the board.

Just 2:12 later, Andreas Lilja scored on a rush into the Stars’ zone led by Henrik Zetterberg.

Zetterberg carried the puck along the right wing boards and cut into the right circle, sending a crossing pass to Lilja in the left circle to redirect the puck into the net.

With the Red Wings on the power play and 45 seconds remaining in regulation, Tomas Holmstrom tipped a Zetterberg shot past Turco to put Detroit out in front.

Even with Kirk Maltby in the penalty box for the final half-minute of the game, the Red Wings were able to hold off a Dallas comeback.

Jason Arnott had opened the scoring with 4:50 remaining in the first period.

After Detroit netminder Manny Legace kicked aside a long shot by Philippe Boucher, Arnott dove to poke the puck back under Legace and into the net.

An apparent Stars goal was called off shortly after that thanks to a quick whistle but Dallas scored again at 3:22 of the third period, when Jere Lehtinen deflected a centering pass from Arnott past Legace for a power play goal.

Between the Dallas goals, the game’s main excitement came from a fight between Steve Ott and Cory Cross with 8:45 remaining in the second period. It was just Detroit’s sixth fight of the season.

Legace finished the game with 28 saves on 30 shots while Turco stopped 29 of 32 shots against.

Both teams went one-for-five on the power play.

The Red Wings will be back in action on Tuesday night when they visit the Nashville Predators to close out the regular season.

---

Detroit was without Steve Yzerman, Pavel Datsyuk, and Mathieu Schneider… With Don MacLean sent back to Grand Rapids, Valtteri Filppula was called up to fill in on the Red Wings’ lineup.