Vancouver Canucks fall to Detroit Red Wings in shootout
Pettersson scores another highlight-reel goal, but Vancouver falls 3-2 in shootout
DETROIT — Dylan Larkin scored the only goal in a shootout to give the Detroit Red Wings a 3-2 comeback win over the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night.
Justin Abdelkader and Gustav Nyquist scored in regulation for Detroit, which has won four of five. Jimmy Howard stopped 40 shots before denying Elias Pettersson, Nikolay Goldobin and Bo Horvat in the tiebreaker.
Pettersson and defenceman Ben Hutton scored in regulation for Vancouver, which had its three-game winning streak snapped. Jacob Markstrom made 28 saves.
Nyquist tied the game at 2 just 1:37 into the third period when his shot went off Markstrom’s pad and in off the leg of Canucks defenceman Troy Stecher for his second goal.
Abdelkader’s power-play goal put Detroit on the board and made it 2-1 with 6:15 left in the second. He put in a loose puck from the slot for his third of the season.
Hutton’s third goal with 8:39 remaining in the middle period gave the Canucks a 2-0 advantage. Hutton beat Howard with a screened wrist shot from the left point.
The Red Wings challenged that the play was offside going into the zone, but the goal was upheld.
Detroit had an apparent goal by Martin Frk reversed on a challenge by Vancouver at 5:36 of the second. Frk took a long pass at the Canucks’ blue line for a breakaway and beat Markstrom with a slap shot from the right circle. But the Canucks challenged that the play was offside and replays showed Frk was in the Vancouver zone before the puck, and the call was reversed.
Pettersson gave Vancouver a 1-0 lead with 6:21 left in the first period on a slap shot from the top of the left circle off the rush. The rookie centre now has 10 goals.
NOTES: Vancouver RW Brock Broeser missed the game with a groin injury. He was replaced in the lineup by LW Brendan Leipsic . . . . The Canucks visit the Boston Bruins on Thursday.
Kings rout rival Ducks 4-1 in coach Desjardins’ debut
LOS ANGELES — Ilya Kovalchuk had a goal and two assists, and the Los Angeles Kings opened the tenure of interim coach Willie Desjardins with a 4-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night.
Dustin Brown and Kyle Clifford scored first-period goals, while Jack Campbell made 30 saves and picked up his first career assist as the Kings comfortably won the first Freeway Faceoff of the season for these two struggling Southern California rivals.
Desjardins has run just one practice since getting his new job Sunday after the Kings fired John Stevens early in his second season in charge. Los Angeles had slumped to the bottom of the overall NHL standings despite a wealth of top-end talent, but Desjardins said he wouldn’t make any drastic changes early on.
The former Vancouver coach’s new players responded with plenty of the passion they usually lacked under Stevens, who took the fall along with assistant coach Don Nachbaur for the Kings’ 4-8-1 start.
Tyler Toffoli’s empty-net goal clinched the Kings’ first back-to-back victories of the season. Los Angeles has won three of four overall following a six-game skid with a huge boost from newcomer Kovalchuk, who has nine points during that four-game stretch.
Ryan Kesler scored and John Gibson stopped 23 shots for the injury-wracked Ducks, who have lost eight of nine and earned points in just three games during that span.
Brown got the Kings’ first goal of Desjardins’ tenure when he swatted Kovalchuk’s centering pass out of midair just 6 1/2 minutes in. The goal was Brown’s third in four games since spending the first 10 games of the season sidelined by a broken finger.
Clifford got his second goal of the season later in the opening period, getting alone in front of Gibson for a backhand after a defensive breakdown by the Ducks.
Kovalchuk made it 3-0 early in the second, getting his fifth goal of his first season with the Kings on a breakaway set up by a long pass from Campbell.
Kesler got the Ducks on the board with a deflection of Marcus Pettersson’s shot later in the second, but the Kings held on in the third period.
NOTES: The clubs met for the 138th time. The Kings improved to 61-51-26 in the Freeway Faceoff . . . . Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf returned to the lineup after missing one game with an upper-body injury.