
RECAP: After grabbing first-period lead, Red Wings ‘locked it down’ for 3-1 victory over Flames
Talbot’s 33 saves, Shine’s first career NHL point and more all part of Detroit’s fifth win in a row
CALGARY — The Detroit Red Wings stretched their winning streak to five consecutive games and swept the season series against the Calgary Flames for the third straight campaign with a 3-1 victory at Scotiabank Saddledome on Saturday night.
Goalie Cam Talbot made 33 saves for his ninth win in his last 10 games, helping Detroit (26-21-5; 57 points) also push its point streak to six in a row. Goaltender Dustin Wolf stopped 23 shots for Calgary (25-19-7; 57 points), which had entered the night boasting a 16-7-3 record on home ice this season.
“We’ve been gutting out a lot of wins lately,” Talbot said. “It’s nice to see that we can win in a lot of different ways. Sometimes, you pull it out when you don’t have your best. Give them a lot of credit. They came out hard, and we knew that they were going to. This is a tough building, and they just made that trade so you knew those new guys were going to come out here flying. Give our guys credit. We weathered the storm there at the beginning, got a couple big goals and locked it down from there.”
The Red Wings took a 2-0 lead into the visiting dressing room after the first period despite being outshot, 12-8.
“It’s great to have a two-goal lead after the first period, but I thought in the first five minutes there were opportunities for us to establish what we call our three-foot boundaries,” Detroit head coach Todd McLellan said. “I didn’t think we did that. I thought [Calgary] did it better than we did, but we talked about it between periods.”
Captain Dylan Larkin’s team-leading 23rd goal of the season got things going at 8:27 of the first period. Speeding into the slot, Larkin finished Christian Fischer’s backhand feed from along the wall with a quick snap shot past Wolf.
Dominik Shine registered his first NHL career point with the secondary assist on Larkin’s 53rd career game-opening goal. Originally signed by the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins as an undrafted free agent on March 14, 2017, Shine has collected 170 points (72 goals, 98 assists) in 462 games with them since 2016-17.
“It means the world,” Shine said. “We wanted a good start, so I was just pumped to be on the ice for that first one. To get that first point, it’s awesome.”
With 45 seconds left in the first period, Detroit doubled its lead when Simon Edvinsson’s shot from the left face-off circle clanged in off the goalpost. Jonatan Berggren and Elmer Soderblom assisted on Edvinsson’s fifth goal of the season.
“His legs get him into the play and when he gets in trouble, his legs get him out of it,” McLellan said about Edvinsson, who leads the club’s blueliners in goals this season. “Great sense of timing and joining the rush. A lot of D-men can do that, but sometimes they don’t arrive on time and they’re either too early or too late.”
The Flames also outshot the Red Wings in the second period, this time 13-8, but couldn’t get one past Talbot and the score went into the third still at 2-0 in Detroit’s favor.
“In the second period, I felt like we received the game a little bit,” McLellan said. “There was just a lot of flip outs, not a lot of connecting passes. We dealt with that in the third, but when we came out in the third I thought we were much better than the beginning of the first two [periods].”