The Detroit Red Wings were on the road Friday night to play in “cold and dark” Winnipeg, as quoted by members of the San Jose Sharks organization. The Red Wings, came into the game losing their most recent game by the hands of the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday. The Winnipeg Jets, who bought Paul Stastny at the trade deadline, came into the game following a heart breaking loss to the Nashville Predators by a score of 6-5, the team that they’re competing against for tops of the Central Division. Could Detroit come out of the “cold and dark” Winnipeg feeling warm and happy? Or would the Winnipeg Jets close in on their divisional rival?

Mike Green returned to the lineup tonight. Green was sidelined due to a “sore neck”, the injury happened in the game against Tampa Bay on February 15th. This injury caused Mike Green to miss 7 games, and the trade deadline. Teams didn’t want to take a risk on the 32 year old offensive defensemen. Now that that’s out of the way, lets break down the game.

The first 12 minutes of the game was pretty uneventful. Neither team had many scoring chances, the hockey was very slow, sloppy, and choppy. It wasn’t until 8:03, when Matt Hendricks took a slashing penalty against Xavier Ouellet, that the game started to get started. Justin Abdelkader played the puck into the corner, during the powerplay, to Henrik Zetterberg, who then fed a wide open Niklas Kronwall at the point, who blasted a shot, going top shelf on Jet’s goalie Connor Hellebuyck, 1-0 Wings. But then, less than a minute later, the Jets would have the lead 2-1. The Red Wings turned the puck over in their defensive end, to Jet’s defenseman Tyler Myers, who holds the puck in the zone, and give the puck to Patrik Laine, who made a beautiful move around Wing’s defense and forwards to roof the puck, past Jimmy Howard to tie the game 1-1, just 38 seconds after the Wings’ goal. Then, just 16 seconds later, Jets rookie forward Jack Roslovic gets the puck to Bryan Little, who then gives defenseman Ben Chiarot a beautiful feed, for a beautiful, hard one timer that ends up in the back of the net. Winnipeg then has the lead.

Later in the period, Red Wings forward Martin Frk takes a slashing penalty. The Wings kill it off, Jimmy Howard had a really nice save on Kyle Connor, who was right in front of the net. Towards the end of the period, Dylan Larkin, Andreas Athanasiou, and Tyler Bertuzzi created a couple high quality chances for the Wings, but nothing to show for it. We headed into the first intermission with the Jets leading 2-1. Shots were 17-12 for the Red Wings.

During the second period is where the Jets really woke up and starting dominating the Wings. At 16:47 in the second period, Nik Kronwall took a high sticking penalty on Joel Armia, putting the Red Wings on the penalty kill. This penalty kill was very good, they kept the puck in the Jets end most of the time, and even got some scoring chances. However, once the penalty ran out, it was not very good. The Winnipeg Jets had possession on the puck in the Red Wings end for 1:20. They completed 27 passes in this time, and scored a goal. Josh Morrissey made an unbelievable pass from the right point, to below the face-off circle to Dustin Byfuglien, who did not miss his shot, and made the score 3-1 in the process.

The Detroit Red Wings needed the next one to stay in the game. Gustav Nyquist came over the Jets blue line, and sauced a puck over to Anthony Mantha, who didn’t accept it cleanly causing the puck to go into the corner. Gustav Nyquist came out of the corner, made a nice, quick direction change to fool Dmitry Kulikov, and passed it through the legs of the Jets captain Blake Wheeler, right to Anthony Mantha who buries his 21st goal of the season. 3-2 Jets.

A little later in the game, Henrik Zetterberg turns the puck over from behind the Red Wings net, right to Kyle Connor, and he gets robbed. This is when Winnipeg really picked it up. 20 seconds later, Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey again makes a nice pass to forward Nikolaj Ehlers from his own zone, Ehlers then enters the Red Wings zone, goes from the right side to the middle, drawing defenseman Nik Kronwall to him, he then makes a slick pass to a wide-open, Red Wing killer Patrik Laine, who walks in and just picks the corner beautifully, and tying Red Wings great Steve Yzerman for the sixth on the list of most goals scored by teenagers in the NHL at 69 goals. 4-2 Jets, and that’s how the period ends.

The Red Wings really needed to score 2 or 3 more goals during the third period, but both goalies would really shut the door. Connor Hellebuyck made some great saves on Andreas Athanasiou, and Gustav Nyquist. And Jimmy Howard would make some more great saves on, well, Kyle Connor again. During the third, both teams really started to hit, even Henrik Zetterberg leveled a few people.

Then, 5:29 seconds into the third period, Tyler Bertuzzi has the puck in Winnipeg’s corner. He makes a pass, out to the point, where Kronwall makes a very nice, smooth, light pass to Trevor Daley, Daley has time to walk in, and pick his spot on the poor goaltender that has seven players in front of him and the puck, it’s now a 4-3 game. But for the rest of the game, neither team would be able to score, resulting in a 4-3 Jets final. The shots on goal were 42-33 for the Jets, the scoring chances were 20-14 for the Jets, the face-offs were 44-26 also for the Jets, and the hits were even at 17-17.

The Motor City MVP for tonight’s loss is Niklas Kronwall. Tonight Nik looked really good offensively, creating opportunities, taking shots, and making nice plays. And I didn’t notice him defensively, which is probably a good thing.

The Wings get a day off before continuing their road trip. Next up, they’re stopping in Minnesota to face off against the Wild on Sunday night. Puck drop is 7:00 P.M. ET and you’ll be able to watch the game on NBCSN.

As always, Brock Seguin will have your pre-game report early Sunday afternoon.