Red Wings Dropped by Bruins in Season’s First Loss

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11 years ago

The Detroit Red Wings couldn’t get anything going against the defending Eastern Conference Champion Boston Bruins on Saturday night, dropping a 4-1 decision in their first loss of the 2013-14 regular season.

Team captain Henrik Zetterberg scored Detroit’s only goal of the game as the Bruins stifled their offense and – at times – turned their defense inside out.

Livonia-native and former Michigan State Spartan Torey Krug opened the game’s scoring for Boston at 9:11 of the first period. Just 15 seconds into a power play, Krug was left uncovered in the high slot to take a pass from Milan Lucic and blast a shot through a screen by Zdeno Chara and past Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard.

Zetterberg would tie things up with 3:11 left in the period. After Pavel Datsyuk gained the puck in the neutral zone, Justin Abdelkader drove to the net with it, putting a shot on Boston goaltender Tuukka Rask. Abdelkader whiffed on his own rebound but Zetterberg got to it and snapped a shot past Rask to make it 1-1.

Brad Marchand would put the Bruins back in front only 36 seconds into the middle frame. Racing down the right wing, Marchand snapped a shot off the far post past Howard and into the net.

At 7:58 of the period Jordan Caron made it 3-1. After a series of giveaways by the Detroit defenders, Adam McQuaid worked the puck down to Reilly Smith in the slot, who passed it off to Caron in the left circle for a wrister past Howard.

Chara rounded out the scoring with 7:43 remaining in the third period, sneaking in behind defenseman Brendan Smith in the slot to take a feed from Krug and put a backhander past Howard to put the score at 4-1.

The Bruins scored twice on four power plays. Detroit had two chances with the extra attacker on the night.

Howard finished the night with 33 saves on 37 shots. Rask stopped 25 of 26 Detroit chances.

Having completed three games in four nights to start the season, the Red Wings are now off until next Thursday when they host the Phoenix Coyotes.

After sitting for the first two games as a healthy scratch, Tomas Tatar swapped in for Mikael Samuelsson on the Red Wings’ fourth line.