Red Wings End Slide in Shootout

The Detroit Red Wings ended a three-game winless streak on Thursday, defeating the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 in a game decided by a shootout.

Henrik Zetterberg scored the only goal of the tiebreaker, slipping a backhander through the pads of Roberto Luongo on Detroit’s second shot.

“Simple, yet brilliant,” Luongo said of the goal. “He carried it on the forehand, slid it to the backhand, waited for me to open up and went five hole.”

Dan Cleary scored both of the Red Wings’ regulation goals, putting the team up by two before a Vancouver comeback.

With 1:44 left in the first period Cleary got the Red Wings on the board, tipping an Andreas Lilja shot from the point. The puck bounced down to the ice, up off Luongo’s glove, and into the net.

Just 1:51 into the second he added another. Valtteri Filppula won a battle for the puck along the right wing boards, moved into the high slot, and worked it down low to Cleary in front of the net for a tip past Luongo.

The Canucks tied the game up before the end of the period.

With 4:39 left, Sami Salo fired a blast from the point. Dominik Hasek came out of the Detroit net to make the stop but the rebound came right to Henrik Sedin to put into the open net.

Markus Naslund evened things up with 1:52 remaining, spinning around a defender in the right circle and throwing the puck to the front of the net, where it deflected off of Brian Rafalski’s skate and past Hasek.

Hasek finished the night with 26 saves on 28 shots. Luongo stopped 47 of Detroit’s 49 chances.

Neither team scored on the power play. The Red Wings had three tries with the extra attacker while the Canucks had two.