DETROIT - Everything seemed to be falling into place for the Red Wings Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena, despite squandering a 2 goal lead.
That is until forward Justin Abdelkader took a goalie interference penalty at the 17:16 mark of the third period, allowing the Dallas Stars to tie the game at 3-3 with 1:10 left in the game.
Dallas went on to score the game winning goal at 4:41 of overtime to defeat the Red Wings, 4-3.
In all, three of the four goals scored by the Stars were late tallies with two coming with less than 25 seconds to play in the second period and in OT.
"It’s a tough loss, we did a lot of good things," said Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg, who assisted on all three of Detroit’s goals. "We played good enough defensively, I don’t think they created that many chances.
"Their first one was a tough one, right before the end of the period. We knew they were going to hang around. We just needed to score more goals and unfortunately we couldn’t do that."
Heading into the game, the Wings were looking to establish home ice. Detroit’s record at the Joe this season is an ordinary 3-2-2 (now 3-2-3). With eight of their next ten games at home, the Wings believe now is the time to make their move in the standings.
"We can’t find a way to win at home," said Zetterberg. "It’s something that we’re really going to have to change. The only good thing is that it’s early in the season.
"We have a lot more games coming up here at home this month and if we keep playing like this we will win games at home."
It was an odd game.
After a scoreless first period, the Wings took a 2-0 lead on goals by Todd Bertuzzi and rookie defenseman Adam Almquist (his first NHL goal). The Stars scored a late goal, tying it up early in the third. But Pavel Datsyuk scored at 11:34 of the third and it appeared the Wings had dodged a Stars comeback.
Abdelkader’s penalty, the Wings second of the night -- Dallas didn’t take a penalty all night -- proved to be costly.
"A penalty 200 feet from home isn’t a good one," said Wings coach Mike Babcock. "All you have to do is flip it in the corner and grind some time off the clock and life’s good for you.
"That was a tough one for us. It wasn’t his (Abdelkader) intention to hurt the team in any way, but it’s a lesson learned, it just can’t happen."
Babcock thought the Wings played a solid game and "did a lot of good things," but you could tell he’s frustrated that the slightest mistake ends up in the back of the Detroit net and he can’t figure out why the Wings struggle at home.
"I don’t want to make it anything worse than it is, but the bottom line is we have 3 points out of a possible 8 available at home ... we have to better than that.
"Pav and Z were outstanding, but two guys don’t make a hockey club. You have to have everybody.
"We have to have our second line generate some offense and our bottom two (lines) cannot be giving up offense."
Detroit will practice Friday and welcome divisional rival Tampa Bay and Steve Yzerman Saturday night at the Joe. The Lightning currently sit atop the Atlantic Division with 22 points.
