Our beloved Red Wings were riding a rough 6 game losing streak into the game against Florida. Fortunately for all of us, Jimmy Howard stood on his head and Gustav Nyquist slipped his shootout attempt underneath Reimer for a 3-2 win. It was the12th straight win in a shootout for the Red Wings, which is somewhat amazing considering the well documented struggles from a couple of seasons back.

The first period (and much of the game really) was a back and forth affair between these two teams; however, the Red Wings were able to strike first. Andreas Athanasiou buried a shot from the slot at the 5:28 mark to give the Wings a 1-0 lead. Primary assist went to Dylan Larkin to hit Athanasiou with a quick pass giving him the chance to bury that shot; the secondary assist was credited to Mantha. Take a moment to soak that in folks-and also pray that Blashill doesn’t mess with this line because we need it as much as the Red Wings need it.

This was the lone goal of the period and despite being outshot 18-10 on the period, the Red Wings were able to carry the lead into the first intermission.

The game-and the scoring- picked up in the second but Florida didn’t seem to concerned as they came out carrying the pace again early on. They were able to net the tying goal at the 4:19 mark when Jonathan Huberdeau redirected a shot passed Howard.

They took things a step further when they netted the 2-1 goal at the 8:23 mark from Evgeny Dadonov. It was a beautiful goal on a stellar deflection, hard not to admire it despite the fact it resulted in the Red Wings being behind.

As mentioned previously, this game was back and forth; while Florida carried the pace with 46 shots (to Detroit’s 38) and winning 45 face-offs (to Detroit’s 37) also had 26 giveaways (to Detroit’s 13) which largely contributed to balancing out the game.

Nyquist showed great determination later in the second when he went end to end on the Panthers. He ultimately tapped home his own rebound to tie the game 2-2.

Jonathan Ericsson was credited with the only assist but we are going to give a hat tip to Tomas Tatar for impeding one of the Panthers players while heading to the bench. That player was step to late to get to the lose puck/Nyquist before he was able to tap home the rebound.

That score would cap all the scoring from regulation and OT; though there were several exciting (and terrifying) moments throughout those 25 minutes. It was capped off by Trevor Daley’s frustration being taken out on his stick. He had a couple of chances to end the game in overtime and was unable to light the lamp; after time had expired, he rapped his stick across the back of the Panthers goal breaking off the blade.

The shootout was a relatively quite affair; Jimmy Howard made a save worthy of ESPN’s top ten and Nyquist was able to tally the loan shootout goal for the win.

As the Hockeystats.ca chart above bears out, after the first period the Panthers were the better team from a Corsi perspective (and would have won the game in regulation had a goal not been called back).

In the end, the Wings just kept plugging away with individual efforts from Howard and Nyquist being the deciding factors.

Tonight’s MVP is… Jimmy Howard. While Nyquist provided the offense, Jimmy Howard turned in a stellar performance with 44 saves in regulation and OT; plus 3 more in the shootout.

The Detroit Red Wings get a couple of days off before returning home for a tilt with the 0-10-1 Arizona Coyotes on Halloween. It will be interesting to see if the Red Wings stay focused or look passed the winless team to the Thursday night game at Ottawa. They are 5-1-5 as of this writing and would likely be a much stiffer test than the Coyotes.

Both games are 7:30 puck drops and can be seen on Fox Sports Detroit. As always, Brock Seguin will have the pre-game report early Saturday afternoon on WingsNation.com.