Detroit Red Wings face shutout, lose fourth against Minnesota Wild 1-0 -NHL Match Update
Detroit Red Wings had one of the best starts to the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season but now they have nosedived down to the lower ranks of the Western Conference as they lost their fourth straight to the Minnesota Wild, 1-0, on Saturday
night, October 29, 2011, at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States.
Minnesota’s goalie, Josh Harding, deemed their recent performance as enough is enough while blocking all 36 shots taken on his net by the Red Wings, outshooting the Minnesota line-up by 16 shots, for his first shutout of the season.
Harding registered his fifth career shutout against a team that barely edged him in their last meeting on Saturday, October 15, in a shootout, 3-2, something which had the 27-year-old goalie in his seventh season with the Wild, looking for revenge.
"It's a great feeling", Harding said. "It makes you know that all that hard work paid off".
Both teams missed out on their four respective added man advantages, which could have turned the match around for either one of the clubs had they capitalised on the power plays.
Dany Heatley scored the only goal of the match midway through the first period for his third of the season, giving captain, Mikko Koivu, an assist for his single point of the game.
Guillaume Latendresse’s penalty with three minutes remaining in the first horrified the Minnesota crowd due to the 5-on-4 advantage their team gave the opposition, but the Wild managed to successfully kill it off.
One of the leagues most notorious coaches, Detroit head coach, Mike Babcock, regarded his team’s performance much better than the previous matchups but added that improvement was needed.
"We played way better (the last two nights)", Babcock said. "We're not scoring easy. We're not scoring at all. We haven't all played where we feel like we got the feel. And they're good players, they're going to get that because there's no way we can suddenly
be a team that can't score. So to me, just keep working, keep doing good things and good things will happen".
The Red Wings will be returning back home for the next six matchups, starting off against the Wild for their second straight meeting on Tuesday, November 1.
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