Devils get Winged in overtime
Dylan Larkin and the Detroit Red Wings are gaining confidence with each win. Rallying on the road sure helps. Larkin scored 4:09 into overtime, Jonathan Bernier stopped 38 shots and the Red Wings beat the Devils, 3-2, Saturday in Newark. Larkin got his eighth goal of the season when he converted a 2on-1 break with Anthony Mantha. It was Detroit’s fifth victory in its last six games.
“It’s awesome and feels good coming in here after games and we’ve come back from behind, finding ways to win instead of last year, when it was going the opposite way,” Larkin said. “Seems like now it’s a different way every time.”
Luke Glendening and Michael Rasmussen also scored for the Red Wings.
The Devils had won two in a row. Pavel Zacha and Blake Coleman scored for the Devils, and Keith Kinkaid made 28 saves.
The Devils dominated the opening period, outshooting the Red Wings, 15-4, and taking the lead on Zacha’s first goal of the season at 11:35. Zacha dropped to one knee to snare a crossthe-slot pass from Jesper Bratt and drive a one-timer by Bernier.
It was a tough opening period for the Red Wings, who lost Darren Helm to an upper-body injury when he was checked along the boards in the Devil end.
Detroit played better at the start of the second and generated several good chances. Kinkaid denied Larkin on a prime scoring opportunity, and Trevor Daley hit the post.
But the Devils opened a 2-0 lead when Coleman scored their first shorthanded goal of the season at 15:53.
The Red Wings finally got on the board when Glendening flicked a quick shot from the left circle past a screened Kinkaid with 1:34 left in the period.
In the third, Rasmussen tied it at 2 on a deflection of Mike Green’s point shot at 13:37. The Devils unsuccessfully challenged the goal, claiming goaltender interference.
The momentum had clearly shifted, and so had the confidence level of the Red Wings.
Now it’s the Devils who could use some swagger after a strong start turned into a disappointing home loss, dropping their record to 3-6-1 in the last 10 games.
“The majority of the game we did some things we wanted to do,” Devils coach John Hynes said. “At the end of the day, we made some mistakes and they wound up in our net.”