The year is 1993. The Buffalo Sabres have just upset the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs, famously remembered for Rick Jeanneret’s “May-Day”. Meanwhile, Steve Yzerman potted fifty-eight goals that year. The good ol’ days. Now both these teams are in a burning building saying “This is fine.” Thanks to late season injections of youth to these teams in Joe Hicketts and Casey Mittelstadt (making his NHL debut) both fan-bases have something to look forward too, now that they are battling for presidency of the Rasmus Dahlin fan-club. Lets see how this lottery division match-up fared!

The beginning of the game didn’t start the way the Wings wanted, with the Sabres striking twice in the first ten minutes.

 

The 2-0 nothing deposit didn’t faze Dylan Larkin, as he sniped one passed Robin Lehner just thirty seconds later. Evgeny Svechnikov picked up his first career assist on the play.

Oh and hey there’s Mittelstadt. Welcome to the NHL kid!

The first period closed with the Wings giving up two short-handed breakaways (one being off a bad turnover from Hicketts) but Howie kept them in it.

The parade of short-handed breakaways continued into the second period, this time in favor of Detroit. Darren Helm got in behind the defense, and as Mickey Redmond put it “He really, fake the jock strap right off Robin Lehner.”

The Wings fed off the momentum, with Anthony Mantha scoring off a Hicketts rebound.

All I’m saying is, the list of NHL defensemen who are point-per-game with at least three games played include:

Joe Hicketts.

The scoring didn’t stop there, as the Wings came storming down the ice for a tick-tack-toe goal for Andreas Athanasiou.

The Sabres would score shortly after, off a face-off to make it 4-3, giving Mittelstadt his first career NHL point.

But fear not! For a fortuitous bounce went straight to Danny Dekeyser to make it 5-3. Henrik Zetterberg picked up an assist, to tie Sergei Fedorov for 5th on the Red Wings all-time points list.

Than to cap it all off, the Sabres pulled their goalie way to early, giving Svechnikov an empty-net for his first career multi-point game.

This was a fairly close game, it just didn’t seem that way because the goals were scored in bunches. Both teams recorded thirty-two shots on goal, and the Red Wings just squeaked out the win in the possession battle. In the end, the Red Wings got slightly better goaltending, with Howard coming up big at certain points of the game.

Tonight was a great team win, but if the Motor City MVP has to go to someone, it would be Henrik Zetterberg. While the kids garnered the most attention, Zetterberg quietly picked-up six shots-on-goal, as well as tying Fedorov for 5th on the Wings all-time points list.

The Red Wings next game will be on Saturday against the Ottawa Senators. In yet another addition of tank wars, they will be battling it out at Little Caesers Arena at 2:00 P.M. As always, we will have the pre-game report on WingsNation.com before the game.