NEW YORK — The Detroit Red Wings showed something to build on Sunday, digging themselves out of a hole on the road to make a game of it against a talented Original Six rival.
Showing growth from previous seasons, the Wings rallied from an early deficit at Madison Square Garden to beat the New York Rangers in overtime, 3-2, for their first three-game winning streak of the season.
“I like that we didn’t get away from our game despite being down 2-0 after the first,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “It was actually a pretty good period. We showed some maturity in not forcing it, sticking to our game, and we got rewarded with a couple goals. I liked our third period. There’s going to be times with a team that talented, on the road, you are put on your heels. That’s a good road win for us.”
Dominik Kubalik scored on a power play at 2:43 of overtime, finishing a perfect pass from David Perron to improve the Wings to 7-3-2.
“I end up in front and I kind of knew that DP is looking at me,” Kubalik said. “I was hoping he was going to put it there, and it ended up in the net. I’m very happy about that.”
Matt Luff and Pius Suter scored in the second period and Alex Nedeljkovic made 27 saves for his first win in four starts.
“I just wanted to focus on me and do my thing and stop pucks for the boys and give them a chance to win,” he said. “They played solid. Going down 2-0 like that in the first can be a tough mountain to climb, but we stuck with it and played our game and we found a way to win.”
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Nedeljkovic rebounds
Lalonde made it clear before the weekend that his goaltenders would split the games. Nedeljkovic was coming off a rough outing, having been in net in an 8-3 loss at Buffalo, and teammates were happy to see him get the win Sunday. “That’s what bothered me the most about Buffalo, we let it get away from us,” Perron said. “If you want him to feel good about his game, you have to help him out more than what we did there.”
Nedeljkovic made a couple big saves in the first period, and didn’t have much of a chance on the two goals. He had made a save on a Jacob Trouba slapshot when the Rangers retained possession, and Moritz Seider came through with a block on Chris Kreider’s attempt. Instead it was Kaapo Kakko, the No. 2 overall pick in 2019 (four spots ahead of Seider), who scored when he flung the puck from the slot, midway through the first period. Zibanejad scored on a one-timer on the Rangers’ second power play, picking up his sixth man-advantage goal of the season. Overall, Nedeljkovic had a strong performance, and teammates helped out with 22 blocks.
“The guys wanted to respond well for Ned,” Lalonde said. “We left him out to dry the last road game. We put him in some bad situations. Ned is a good goalie, we just have to give him a chance to succeed, and we did that. The times we didn’t, he made some really big saves. Very similar to what we saw from Ville (Husso) the last couple games. He looked good in there. He calmed the game down for us.”
Keep shooting
It wasn’t for lack of chances that the Wings came out of the first period down two goals. Kubalik tried to dent Jaroslav Halak twice during a Detroit power play, and David Perron and Filip Hronek also created scoring opportunities. It was a shot by Ben Chiarot that finally made a difference; his slap shot from the blue line hit Luff, who was in front of the Rangers crease, and sank in at 2:56 of the second period. Seider also picked up an assist, his second in two games and third in four games. Suter came through at 8:37, scoring for the second time this weekend, to make it 2-2.
Zadina not expected back anytime soon
The victory came the day after the Wings beat the New York Islanders, and lost Filip Zadina to injury after he was hit in the leg with a shot. Lalonde didn’t have specifics, but said something is broken and that it’s a matter of months, not weeks.
Austin Czarnik, a 29-year-old Detroit native who has played parts of the last seven seasons around the league, slotted into Zadina’s spot on a line with Michael Rasmussen and Adam Erne, and had a shot on net two minutes into the game. Luff is another call-up; the 25-year-old with nearly 100 NHL games experience entered the lineup Oct. 31 in place of Oskar Sundqvist (upper body). The Wings are also without Tyler Bertuzzi (upper body), Jakub Vrana (players assistance program) and Robby Fabbri (knee).
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.
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Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.