Red Wings Drop Shootout Decision to Panthers

For the second consecutive game the Detroit Red Wings fell in the shootout, dropping a 3-2 decision to the Florida Panthers Friday night.

Detroit is now 1-5 in the shootout on the season, their only victory coming against the winless New Jersey Devils. Gustav Nyquist and Pavel Datsyuk failed to beat Florida netminder Roberto Luongo while both Vincent Trochek and Brandon Pirri scored on Detroit’s Jimmy Howard.

Despite the loss, the point for surviving regulation moved the Red Wings into a three-way tie with Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh for first place in the Eastern Conference.

All of the game’s scoring came in the first period.

RIley Sheahan started things off at 5:03 on the power play. Tomas Tatar’s shot from the left faceoff circle was knocked out to Datsyuk in the slot for a chance that Luongo stopped. Sheahan was on the doorstep to knock the rebound into the back of the net.

The Panthers got on the board 2:07 later, when former Detroit prospect Tomas Fleischmann snapped a shot from the slot past Howard.

With 6:05 left in the period, Jonathan Huberdeau fought off pressure by Datsyuk to spin and shovel a shot from the near edge of the right circle past Howard to give Florida a 2-1 lead.

Nyquist knotted things back up with 38.5 seconds left. While falling, Nyquist backhanded a shot from the slot past Luongo in the final second of a Detroit power play.

The Red Wings scored twice on four power play tries while the Panthers were scoreless on five attempts with the extra attacker.

Howard finished the night with 24 saves on 26 shots. Luongo stopped 29 of 31 shots against.

The Red Wings are back in action on Saturday when they visit the Toronto Maple Leafs.

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Detroit was without defenseman Danny DeKeyser, replaced in the lineup by call-up Xavier Ouellet… The Red Wings lost forward Stephen Weiss to injury mid-game… Daniel Cleary and Brian Lashoff were healthy scratches.