Injured Red Wings Earn Shootout Win over Predators

The Detroit Red Wings were missing several of their regulars but still managed to pick up a 4-3 shootout win over the Nashville Predators Tuesday night.

Without Henrik Zetterberg, Tomas Holmstrom, Mikael Samuelsson, and Dan Cleary, it fell to Johan Franzen to be the shootout hero, scoring in the fourth round to put the Red Wings out in front. Chris Osgood stopped Martin Erat to preserve the victory.

In the first round of the tiebreaker, Pavel Datsyuk scored for Detroit. Paul Kariya evened things in the second round.

Nashville forced the shootout with 8:18 remaining in regulation on a goal by Greg Zanon. Zanon floated a shot on net from the left point that went through a three-player screen and hit Osgood’s arm, bouncing off his shoulder and just across the goal line.

The Red Wings had opened the scoring 4:23 into the game when Pavel Datsyuk broke down the right wing and cut to the net, lifting a shot from in close over Nashville netminder Tomas Vokoun’s shoulder and into the top of the net.

The Predators replied with 4:52 remaining in the period on a power play, when a Paul Kariya shot from the right circle trickled through Osgood’s pads and Erat jumped up to poke it into the net.

Jason Arnott one-timed a blast past Osgood at 5:11 of the second period to give the Predators their only lead of the game.

Two goals in 25 seconds put Detroit back out in front.

With 7:30 remaining in the period, Robert Lang put the rebound of a Mathieu Schneider shot past Vokoun with the Red Wings on the power play.

Just seconds later, Lang sprung Schneider free to break up the middle of the ice all alone and wrist a shot past Vokoun, his 200th career goal.

Vokoun finished the game with 32 saves on the 35 shots he faced. Osgood made 24 saves on 27 shots against.

Each team scored once on the power play. Nashville had three tries with the extra skater while Detroit had five, including a long five-on-three in the first period that they couldn’t score on.

The shootout win means the Red Wings gain one point on the Predators in the Central Division standings, putting them one point back with a game in hand. The two teams will face each other three more times this season, including a home-and-home next week.

The Red Wings will be back in action on Friday when they host the Los Angeles Kings.

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The win was coach Mike Babcock’s 100th with the Red Wings.