Detroit forward Tomas Tatar notched two goals Sunday evening, leading the Red Wings to a 3-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh.
With the win, the Red Wings move into a tie for first place in the Eastern Conference with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Pavel Datsyuk opened the game’s scoring with 3:24 left in the first period. Datsyuk protected the puck along the right wing boards and dropped it off to Jonathan Ericsson, who took a shot on net and followed it, gathering the rebound, curling around the end board, and back up the opposite wing before sending it back across to Datsyuk. Datsyuk stepped in from the point to the faceoff dot and whipped a shot between the legs of defenseman Andrej Sekera and past goalie Cam Ward.
Just two minutes later, Tatar’s first made it 2-0. Ericsson shot the puck around the boards and it came to Justin Faulk on the left wing. Faulk misplayed it and both Datsyuk and Tatar got to it, with Tatar throwing a shot at Ward. Ward kicked it aside but it deflected off Sekera and back into the net.
With 7:46 left in the second period, Tatar scored a more traditional goal for his second of the night. Cutting up the slot, Tatar took a feed from Datsyuk and snapped a shot past Ward for a three-goal lead.
Jay McClement would score Carolina’s only goal of the game with 2:49 left in the middle period, tipping a Tim Gleason shot from the point past Detroit netminder Petr Mrazek.
Mrazek finished the night with 34 saves on 35 shots. Ward stopped 19 of 22 chances.
Neither team scored a power play goal. Detroit had three tries with the extra attacker while Carolina had four.
The Red Wings are now off until they host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday.
With Detroit playing on consecutive nights, Daniel Cleary and Brian Lashoff replaced Joakim Andersson and Jakub Kindl in the lineup. Justin Abdelkader remained out with a shoulder injury.
