NHL Recap: Detroit Red Wings nip hosts Colorado Avalanche 4-3
Niklas Kronwall scored the game-winner on power play as Detroit Red Wings nipped the host Colorado Avalanche, 4-3, at Pepsi Centre on Monday night.
Chris Osgood, who stopped 46 shots, recorded his 400th career win with 66 ties and became only the 10th goaltender in NHL history to reach the 400-win plateau.
"I'm happy to get that one done with," said Osgood. "I've worked hard to stay in the league, changing my style and staying in shape. That's what I'm most proud of."
Matt Duchene and TJ Galiardi built the lead for Colorado over Red Wings in the first; however Jiri Hudler and Johan Franzen tied it as the teams scored 4 goals in the first 12:32.
Avalanche hit the scoreboard at 3:29 with Duchene’s first goal, as Duchene pushed home a Tomas Fleischmann rebound.
The Red Wings responded at 5:35 with a power-play goal by Jiri Hudler. Hudler took his own rebound and shot a rolling puck over Peter Budaj’s glove and thus tied the game at 1-1.
At the 6:21 mark, Avalanche took a 2-1 lead over Detroit when TJ Galiardi beat Osgood with a shot from the left faceoff circle. It was Galiardi’s second goal of the season.
Detroit counterpunched at 12:32 on Franzen’s man-advantage goal and removed the one-goal deficit. Franzen took a pass from Nicklas Lidstorm in the left circle and wired a shot by Peter Budaj, seven seconds after John-Michael Liles took a cross-checking penalty.
The first period finished in a 2-2 tie, with the Detroit twice removing their one-goal deficits with power-play goals.
Osgood came up big in the second period and made nearly a dozen quality saves. He kept the game tied at 2-2 by stopping one point-blank shot after the other. He stopped 23 shots in the period, including a solid backhanded effort by Philippe Dupuis and Adam
Foote.
With 5:23 remaining in the third, Detroit got a 3-2 lead when Nicklas Lidstrom scored on a power-play, taking pass from Hudler and wristing it under the crossbar.
However, with 2:36 to go, Matt Duchene scored his second goal of the game on a power play, converting a Paul Stastny rebound at the right post on Avalanche's advantage. This once again tied the game but this time at 3-3. Duchene thus sent the game to overtime.
Kronwall scored the winner on a power play at 3:42 of overtime, following a tripping call on Budaj as the goalie tripped Darren Helm skating around the net. Kronwall slammed in a shot from the left circle and made it a 4-3 game.
Budaj made 26 saves out of the 30 shots in the defeat.
"When you give up a power play in overtime to such good players as the Red Wings, they're going to capitalize," Budaj said.
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