Howard wanted to accept the blame, and his failure to seal his short side along his body left leg pad at the left post cost the Wings their early 1-0 lead when Melker Karlsson scored his first of the season, banging away at the puck until it was behind Howard.
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“That can’t go in”, Howard said.
“That first one can’t go in”. It’ll be interesting to see whether Pete DeBoer shuffles his lines again tonight or keeps them relatively intact following the win.
Sure there were lots of shots, but it was the quality of the opportunities that left the Red Wings with only two goals, after scoring just one in each of the previous two games.
The Sharks made it 3-1 with their 10th shot of the game at 10:23 of the second, as Paul Martin’s slap shot from the point was deflected past Howard by Pavelski. But at home? It’s a shaky 1-5-1 record, with his SV% plummeting to.866, and his GAA rising to a 3.89. Who knows. Abdelkader has 27 goals over his last 86 games, aided by an unsustainable 15.1% shooting percentage.
However, San Jose tied it about 41/2 minutes later. That might make the analytics gurus smile, but it didn’t pass the smell test among the Detroit brass. “You can’t get that down in that situation”, Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said.
“We needed a win tonight”. “After that, we started trying to get cute instead of working for good shots”.
The Sharks were also looking to push the restart button after a 1-3 homestand in which they scored nine goals in four games.
They led 2-0 on goals from Zdeno Chara and Ryan Spooner but couldn’t hold on, dropping to 1-5-1 at TD Garden.
The players offered a variety of opinions on what’s wrong and what can be done to fix what ails the team’s attack. “It just didn’t go in”, Tatar said. He became a weapon on the power play, notching eight goals. “Just got to find a way to be a little crisper”.
Much like the one Teemu Pulkkinen tallied with 18:08 gone in the third period.
There might have been a few outside concern about Sharks goalie Martin Jones after his most recent performance before Friday.
“It’s not acceptable what’s going on right now and we have to take the responsibility that goes with it”, Julien said. “But I think if we have more shots, we’ll be more risky”. But the overall offensive effort remains suspect.
Datsyuk said it was “fun to be in the locker room and fun to be with the team”. “It’s no excuse for what’s been going on so far at home and we have to turn it around, and that’s on us as players”.
“So we need to continue to do that tomorrow night (at Boston) and we’ll be fine”.
The Detroit Red Wings are traveling to town after a late game last night in which they fell to the San Jose Sharks.
“I felt good in there”, Jones said. “I thought we played a good road game”.
Physically, Datsyuk admitted he wasn’t quite up to the game pace yet.
Datsyuk received a standing ovation when he came on the ice for his first shift, 22 seconds into the game.
By moving Marleau to the middle, DeBoer wanted to lessen the burden on Hertl and Chris Tierney and also get better matchups against the speedy Wings without last change. It was tough to get pucks through and tough to get into their end.
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“Yeah, like I had good chances”, Datsyuk said.
