TGTW: Red Wings Fall in Shootout to Avs, End Season in Sixth

The Games That Weren’t is one of many projects simulating the games lost by the NHL lockout. In the absence of actual games to write about, I’ll be checking in periodically on the fictional Red Wings’ season.

The Detroit Red Wings ended their season Saturday night with a 4-3 shootout loss to the Colorado Avalanche. With the loss, the Red Wings back into the playoffs as the Western Conference’s sixth seed and will face the Northwest Division Champion Edmonton Oilers, who actually finished the season with fewer points in the standings than Detroit.

Detroit had a 3-1 lead over the Avs late in the second period but goals by P-A Parenteau with nine seconds remaining in the middle period and David Jones at 1:20 of the third evened things up. Niklas Kronwall had opened the scoring with 3:10 to go in the first and Jamie McGinn tied it up with 1:27 remaining. Kyle Quincey and Mikael Samuelsson scored for the Wings in the second period to build their lead.

The Wings complete the season with a 44-31-7 record, good for 95 points.

Detroit’s leading scorer on the season was Valtteri Filppula, notching 28 goals and 56 assists – both career-highs – for 84 points in 82 games, good for 12th in the league. Pavel Datsyuk also finished above the point-per-game mark, with 82 points (25 goals, 57 assists) in 81 games.

Starting goalie Jimmy Howard finished the season with a 2.68 goals-against average and a .892 save percentage. Backup Jonas Gustavsson had a GAA of 3.47 and a .846 save percentage.

The Games That Weren’t will not be simulating the playoffs.