Detroit Red Wings take show on the road with win over the Calgary Flames
The Detroit Red Wings kicked off their Western Canadian road swing on a positive note by beating the Calgary Flames 2-1 on Wednesday, 3 November.
How it happened
Calgary went ahead 1-0 in the first period when Mark Giordano scored his first of the season with the Flames on a 4-on-3 man advantage. Jarome Iginla fed a pass back to Giordano at the top of the face-off
circle to the right of Jimmy Howard, and Giordano made no mistake firing a hard one-timer into the roof of the net.
The Red Wings got goals from unlikely sources with both coming in the second period. Mike Modano got the first after collecting a bouncing puck in the neutral zone and racing in and firing a hard wrist
shot past Mikka Kiprusoff. The goal was Modano's first since the team's season opener.
Justin Abdelkader got the game winner for the Red Wings, with his first of the season, after Pavel Datsyuk had led him in on goal with a nice saucer pass to fire past Kiprusoff.
What they're saying
Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock was happy with the way his team performed especially given that it was away from home. "I thought our team had some urgency about us," he said. "We had good specialty
teams, and we hung in there. It's not easy to win in Calgary – it's always been a tough building. I thought they played well tonight. They had lost a couple of games, and we knew they were going to be hungry."
The Flames have now lost three in a row and head coach Brent Sutter was not happy about it. "The second goal is a bad line change and we allow a 3-on-2 to happen that turns into a two-on-one and that's
another goal," he said. "You have a 1-0 hockey game, you've just got to stay with your game, yet we give two odd-man rushes up that cost us goals. You can't do that against most teams in the National Hockey League. You're going to get burnt on it and we did
tonight."
The Flames, with their third-straight loss, are now slipping down the table in the Western Conference and have a crucial game upcoming against divisional rivals, the Minnesota Wild, on Friday, 5 November.
The Detroit Red Wings continue to dominate the Western Conference as they improved their record to 7-2-1, and are challenging the Los Angeles Kings for first overall in the West. They continue their tour
of Western Canada when they take on the Edmonton Oilers on Friday night.
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