Wings Postgame: J1mmy H0ward

Jimmy Howard deserved better tonight. He played one of the best games we’ve seen of his in a long time, but it wasn’t enough; the Wings were held scoreless in a 1-0 overtime loss to the New York Rangers on Sunday night.

To the Red Wings’ credit, they held their own for the first 40 minutes, only being outshot by four despite going down 7-0 in the first five minutes and having giving up an extra powerplay in the same time frame. Kyle Quincey was the one to blame for the man disadvantage, having taken a pair of tripping penalties in the span of five minutes.

At one point, the Rangers appeared to break the ice with a shot from a bad angle, but video review showed that Oscar Lindberg had picked a curious spot to plant his skate before Jimmy Hayes’ attempt.

Many on the team did their best to litter the net with pucks. Henrik Zetterberg and Justin Abdelkader, who both played upwards of 23 minutes, were each rejected by Henrik Lundqvist on three separate occasions. In fact, just three players went without a shot; the Danny DeKeyser, Darren Helm, and Dylan “Recovering From Illness” Larkin.

Unfortunately, Howard’s huge night was matched by Lundqvist, which led to a deadlocked game going into overtime. Howard had even stopped a penalty shot to bring them to this point. At this point, though, it had begun to show that the Wings were an away team who had played the night before. With two minutes to go, the aforementioned Hayes found himself on a 2-on-1 rush. While Howard and Brendan Smith did their best to neutralize the play, the puck found its way onto Kevin Klein’s stick for a one-timer which opened and closed the scoresheet.

Howard was very obviously the best player on the ice tonight, stopping 29 of 30 shots. But this save on Jesper Fast takes the cake; arguably the save of the year either him or Petr Mrazek.

The Red Wings will be back at it on Tuesday against a slightly easier opponent in the Columbus Blue Jackets. Columbus are not only bottom feeders but have a game against the Bruins on Monday, so they should come in tired as well. Puck drop is at 7:30 PM.