DETROIT -- Maybe those who warned that the Red Wings shouldn't expect Gustav Nyquist to be the savior were actually wrong.
All Nyquist did was score two goals -- including the first one 17 seconds into the game and the game-winner with 4:02 left in the third period on a breakaway -- in a 4-3 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena.
It snapped both the seven-game winless skid and the eight-game home winless skid for the Red Wings and energized the sellout crowd of 20,066.
"Obviously he’s a big factor in this game," captain Henrik Zetterberg said. "He comes in with a lot of energy, a lot of confidence, scores right away in his first shift and scores on a breakaway so it’s fun to see.
"He’s probably been waiting for this day ever since training camp and it’s nice to see him take advantage right away."
Goaltender Jonas Gustavsson, who made 24 saves to improve to 4-0-1, was happy for his fellow Swede.
"It was great for him and great for us to have him here," Gustavsson said. "He was a big factor. With his speed, he’s going to create a lot of scoring chances and he backchecks, as well. He’s huge for us and he showed that (Thursday night)."
Naturally, the humble Nyquist said the victory was a good team effort.
"It was nice to get two goals and contribute but overall I thought the team played real well," Nyquist said. "We had some huge penalty kills, I thought they were great so overall a great team win for us."
It was rather fitting that Nyquist would make his season debut for the Wings on a night when they were honoring new Hockey Hall of Fame member and former No. 14 for the Wings, Brendan Shanahan.
"I did my best," Nyquist said. "It’s a special number to wear and obviously he was a big player for the Red Wings. It was great to see him honored here (Thursday night) and congrats to him, he’s had a great career."
Nyquist has already had a great minor league career, dominating the American Hockey League with the Grand Rapids Griffins. He was leading the Griffins with 21 points (7-14-21) in 15 games and tied for fourth in the AHL in scoring.
Nyquist has been disappointed by getting sent down before, so he's not letting his hopes get too high.
"We’ll see what happens here," Nyquist said. "Obviously this is where I want to play and I want to be a part of this team and hopefully we’ll be able to work that out."
Everyone knows that Nyquist has nothing left to prove at the AHL level.
The reasons he was sent down coming out of camp was because of the glut of forwards, the salary cap and because if he played two more NHL games, he would have to go through waivers to go back down.
Now that number is down to one.
Nyquist is not going to score two goals in every game, but the Wings need to find a way to keep him even when Daniel Alfredsson and Stephen Weiss return from groin injuries.
"That's what I would have done if I was him if I could," Wings coach Mike Babcock said of Nyquist's performance. "He's obviously got skill, knows how to play and he can be an important guy going ahead.
"We'll see what happens. It's called money."
If the Wings don't find a way to make the money work and keep Nyquist in Detroit, those same fans that were chanting "Gustav Nyquist" Thursday night will be chanting something far less positive and definitely unprintable.
Hopefully it doesn't come to that.
