Red Wings’ Skid Continues with 2-1 Loss to Islanders

The Red Wings’ losing streak reached five games on Friday night, as Detroit dropped a 2-1 decision to the New York Islanders.

Detroit also lost starting goalie Jimmy Howard, who left the game after the first period for “precautionary” reasons after suffering a lower-body injury. Petr Mrazek replaced him in net for the final forty minutes of play.

Henrik Zetterberg scored his first goal since November 26 to open the scoring. Darren Helm outworked Thomas Hickey along the boards and sent a pass to Zetterberg at the inside edge of the right faceoff circle for a snap past Jaroslav Halak at 8:49 of the first period.

With 3:57 left in the first, Brock Nelson swatted the rebound of a Lubomir Visnovsky chance past Howard to tie things up.

The game-winner came at 10:41 of the second period, when Mrazek stopped Nelson all alone in front but Anders Lee jumped in to knock the loose puck into the net.

Halak finished the night with 17 saves on 18 shots. Mrazek stopped 22 of 23 while Howard made eight saves on nine chances.

Neither team scored a power play goal, with Detroit having two chances and New York three.

The Red Wings next host the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday.

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Johan Franzen returned to the lineup after missing one game due to illness… Daniel Cleary, Jakub Kindl, and Brian Lashoff were healthy scratches… After the game, the Red Wings called up goalie Thomas McCollum and demoted defenseman Xavier Ouellet.