Green leads Wings to win column

After a pair of tough road tests in Florida, the Detroit Red Wings played host to the Ottawa Senators on Monday (Oct. 17) for its final home opener at the Joe Louis Arena.

The Wings were as desperate as an NHL team can be three games into a season, facing a Sens team riding a 2-0 start to the season.

Defenseman Mike Green played his best game since joining the Wings from the Capitals a year ago, scoring three as the Wings broke into the win column in a big way with a 5-1 win. Darren Helm scored the other two Wings goals.

The Wings literally fought to get this one as both Jonathan Ericsson (against Dion Phaneuf) and Justin Abdelkader (against Chris Neil) dropped the gloves in a contest that turned chippy.

Actually, the scrap between Abdelkader and Neil may have been just what the doctor ordered as it seemed to rouse the team that had fallen into a bit of a slumber after opening the game with three unanswered tallies in the first period.

It seemed the Wings might turn this one into a laugher after Mike Green scored a pair, sandwiching a beautiful breakaway goal by Helm to cap off a perfect opening segment that included a salute to Gordie Howe near the nine minute mark.

However, after holding a 13-9 edge in shots in the opening period, the Wings found themselves on the defense through much of the middle period as the Sens held a 14-5 edge on the shot clock and got a shorthanded effort from Ryan Dzingel to get on the board.

The Sens continued to push hard in the third and the aggression was a factor in the game’s second scrap, between Neil and Abdelkader with 8:33 to go.

Less than two minutes later, Green finished off his hat trick as he received a pass at the blueline and moved up to the top of the faceoff circle before snapping it past Andrew Hammond, making his first start of the season for the Sens.

Thomas Vanek picked up his third point of the night making a nice feed from behind the net to Helm for the final goal on a powerplay with less than three minutes to play.

For a third straight time so far this season, the Wings were outshot in the contest and Petr Mrazek turned aside 31 of 32, the lowest total he has faced so far having backstopped the Wings in all three.

The Wings will hit the road again now with a game at Madison Square Gardens against the New York Rangers on Wednesday and then return home to face the Nashville Predators on Friday night.

Tuesday’s games

Most of the other Midwest area teams will be in action Tuesday night (Oct. 18) as the 1-1-0-0 Minnesota Wild plays host to the 0-2-0-0 Los Angeles Kings, one of only two NHL teams without a point thus far in the NHL campaign. Darcy Kuemper is expected to make is his first start of the NHL season for the Wild; the 1-2-0-0 Chicago BlackHawks entertaining the 1-0-1-0 Philadelphia Flyers as Corey Crawford looks for his first win in his third start of the season for the Hawks.

The game of the night though might be on the coast as a pair of still undefeated teams go at it. The 3-0-0-0 St. Louis Blues will visit the 2-0-0-0 Vancouver Canucks in what likely will be match pitting Ryan Miller against Jake Allen. Goalies had not been confirmed at the time this was written.