Despite playing in front of hundreds of family members and close friends, the Detroit Red Wings dropped their second straight game in Sweden to the St. Louis Blues by a score of 5-3.
Much like yesterday, the Red Wings got off to a very fast start in the first period. Tomas Holmstrom saw a puck graze in off his pants to make it 1-0 just 31 seconds in. A minute and a half later, Dan Cleary beat former Red Wing Ty Conklin to make it 2-0, jamming a puck in off a Henrik Zetterberg pass from the corner. Cleary nearly made it 3-0 minutes later, deflecting a puck past Conklin that was waived off because Cleary’s stick was above the crossbar.
The Red Wings were unable to put the Blues away in the first period, despite a 14-1 shot advantage at one point, mostly the result of four straight Blues penalties. With Kirk Maltby off for elbowing, St. Louis cut Detroit’s lead in half as Keith Tkachuk found a way to slide a puck through a sprawled Jimmy Howard.
St. Louis started the second period as strong as they finished the first, evening the shots out to 18-15 their advantage despite the margin they were down in the first period. Andy Mcdonald evened the score when he put home a rebound that Howard had deflected out front. Niklas Kronwall helped Detroit regain the lead on the powerplay minutes later, but from there it was all St. Louis.
Brad Boyes slid a shot through Howard’s pads that just trickled over the line, and 12 seconds later Patrik Berglund found himself on a partial breakaway as he wired a slapshot through the pads of Howard, giving St. Louis the lead for the first time in the contest. Keith Tkachuk added his second goal in the contest late in the third, tipping a puck over Howard, to give St. Louis the 5-3 victory.
Jonathan Ericsson returned to the lineup today for Detroit after leaving yesterday, but Brett Lebda left the game in the second period after taking a hard hit into the end boards.
Detroit has four days off before they take on the Chicago Blackhawks at home to open up their North American schedule.
