Red Wings’ Skid Continues with Collapse Against Wild

Pavel Datsyuk returned to the Red Wings lineup on Sunday night and scored a goal, but it wasn’t enough to hold off his team’s collapse against the Minnesota Wild in a 3-2 loss.

Datsyuk – who missed the Wings’ 5-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Friday – sniped a shot past Minnesota rookie goalie Darcy Keumper off a cross-ice backhand feed from Henrik Zetterberg just twenty seconds into the second period, giving the Red Wings a 2-0 lead.

A 4:10 span later in the period turned the tables, however, and the Red Wings never recovered.

At 9:35, Dany Heatley threw a shot through traffic that beat Detroit goalie Petr Mrazek after Mrazek while Mrazek was recovering from going down off an earlier chance.

Jason Zucker scored his first career NHL goal 3:38 later. After Jonathan Ericsson pinched in from the point in the Minnesota zone, Zucker blew past him, Valtteri Filppula and Mikael Samuelsson to have a clear lane down the right wing. He gained the Detroit zone untouched and snapped a shot past Mrazek to tie things up.

Just 32 seconds later, Torrey Mitchell knocked a loose puck past Mrazek off a faceoff in the Detroit zone.

Damien Brunner had opened the scoring at 8:48 of the first period when he deflected a Datsyuk chance past Kuemper.

Kuemper finished the night with 29 saves on 31 shots while Mrazek made 21 saves on 24 shots.