LATE GAME GOALS POWER RED WINGS PAST OILERS

The Detroit Red Wings used some late game heroics from Marian Hossa and Valtteri Filppula to get past the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night with a 3-2 win.  The victory was the Wings fifth in six games and pulled Detroit one point ahead of idle San Jose for the league’s best record. 

Edmonton took control of the hard fought contest late in the first period on Denis Grebeshkov’s power play goal at the 18:49 mark assisted by Ales Hemsky and Dustin Penner.  The Oilers maintained their 1-0 lead throughout a scoreless second period thanks to the goaltending of Duane Roloson, who kept the Red Wings off the board despite Detroit outshooting Edmonton 17-4.  The Red Wings would mount another offensive barrage in the third period, finally breaking through to tie the game midway through the frame as Jonathan Ericsson scored assisted by Brian Rafalski and Tomas Holmstrom.

With regulation time ticking away and overtime looming, the Red Wings shocked the Rexall Place crowd when Marian Hossa scored assisted by Johan Franzen and Brian Rafalski with less than two minutes remaining to give his team a 2-1 lead.  That shock turned to stunned silence just 32 seconds later as Detroit scored again to open up an improbable two goal lead with just over a minute remaining.  Valtteri Filppula lit the lamp this time, assisted by Franzen and Nicklas Lidstrom.  Edmonton would get one back as Ales Kotalik scored with a minute remaining with assists to Robert Nilsson and Sam Gagner.  They were unable to net the equalizer in the final sixty seconds, however, and Detroit won 3-2.

After the game, Detroit coach Mike Babcock was pleased with his team’s response in a tough ‘back to back’ game situation:

"When you play back-to-back your legs aren't the same as they normally are. It takes you a while to get them back. You've got to fight through that, and not bury yourself early in the game while your legs do come back and I think that's what happened.”

"They outshot us in the first, I think they had 13 shots on net and I don't know how much they finished with but not a lot, so we took over from that point."

In the losing locker room, Oilers’ coach Craig MacTavish tried to sum up his team’s disappointment:

"A game like that leaves everybody with a heavy heart. It's an incredible sense of disappointment. But at the same time we played pretty well and in a lot of ways outstanding. The way we checked and killed penalties. It's disappointing but we'll take some solace in that.”

The Oilers are currently in 7^th place in the NHL West, but are one of five teams separated by a total of three points fighting for two playoff spots.  They’ll play at Phoenix on Thursday, Anaheim on Friday and return home to face Minnesota on Sunday.  Detroit will play their next three at home, hosting the NY Islanders on Friday, Nashville on Sunday and St. Louis on Thursday.