Red Wings top Coyotes 5-4 in shootout
GLENDALE — Gustav Nyquist’s shootout goal gave the Detroit Red Wings a 5-4 victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday night.
Petr Mrazek stopped all three Coyotes shots in the shootout and finished with 22 saves, and the Red Wings won for just the second time in seven games. Henrik Zetterberg, Mike Green and Tomas Tatar each had a goal and an assist for the Red Wings. Andreas Athansiou added two assists.
Mrazek stopped Coyotes shootout ace Radim Vrbata, who has 45 career goals in the tiebreaker, the most in NHL history. The Red Wings are 8-0 in shootouts this season.
Alex Goligoski had a goal and an assist, and Vrbata, Lawson Crouse and Jakob Chychrun also scored for the Coyotes, who snapped a three-game win streak. Josh Jooris had two assists and Mike Smith had 29 saves.
The teams scored twice each in a back-and-forth third period. Zetterberg broke a 3-3 tie with 6:05 left to play, putting a lefthanded shot past Smith. But Chychrun tied it for the Coyotes with 2 1/2 minutes to go.
Zetterberg tied Norm Ullman for sixth place all-time in goals in Red Wings history with 324.
Green took a feed from Zetterberg, split a pair of defenders and backhanded a shot past Smith at 3:52 of the third, giving Detroit a 3-2 lead. The Coyotes tied it at 7:37, with Crouse finishing a 2-on-1 short-handed breakaway.
Detroit scored on two of its six power plays, their best conversion rate in a game since going 2 for 4 at Vancouver on Feb. 28. The Red Wings were 0 for 8 on the power play over their previous five road games.
The second period featured three goals, two for the Coyotes to take a brief 2-1 lead and one for the Red Wings that tied it at 4:45 of the period.
Vrbata tied it 1-1 at the 1:53 mark when his wrist shot beat Mrazek for his 17th of the season.
Arizona took its first lead on Goligoski’s shot that hit Green in the skate and caromed into the net just over two minutes later.
The Red Wings drew even after the Coyotes’ Jordan Martinook was called for slashing, and the resulting power play helped Tatar pick up his team-high 18th of the season at 4:45 of the second.
The Red Wings converted one of two first-period power plays. Larkin’s goal came at 8:11 when a shot by Athansiou was stopped by Smith. The rebound came to Riley Sheahan, who sent the puck to the other side of the net for Larkin for a shot Smith couldn’t gather.