In Detroit, Alex DeBrincat hit for a double on Saturday to help the Red Wings to a 6-4 win over the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning.
“You always want to get off to a good start,” DeBrincat said after his first home game with his hometown team. “Now I want to stay as consistent as possible. That’s what the great goal-scorers do.”
Ville Husso made 21 saves in the Wings win.
“Still not a perfect game; our offense was going, but we made some mistakes,” Detroit captain Dylan Larkin said. “I think the biggest factor tonight [was] we stayed out of the box. That was huge for us. I think we were the better team 5-on-5.”
Daniel Sprong staked the Red Wings to a 1-0 lead early in the first. Midway through the frame, Steven Stamkos knotted it at 1-1 for Tampa Bay.
The Lightning grabbed a 2-1 lead on a marker from Brandon Hagel at 12:32.
This time the Red Wings tied it with DeBrincat’s first of the game at 14:35..
Two minutes into the middle frame, Lucas Raymond pushed Detroit back in front, 3-2, with two minutes gone in the middle frame.
Midway through the second, Stamkos hit for his second of the night and a 3-3 tie.
“We never do [stuff] like we did tonight, and I’m talking about players who have played a lot of games for this team,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “When you give another team as much as we gave them tonight, it is almost impossible to win a hockey game.”
J.T. Compher and DeBrincat then struck for a 5-3 lead to Detroit in the middle frame.
“I loved our offense tonight, but we had six or seven plays that led to easy chances for them,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said. “We could have made things a lot easier on ourselves.”
Victor Hedman scored off the power play at 9:39 of the third to trim the deficit to one at 5-4.
Moritz Seider hit an empty net with one second on the clock for the 6-4 final.
Jonas Johansson made 36 saves in the Tampa loss.
“[Johannson] kept us in the game, which was great, but our puck management gave them too many easy chances,” Hedman said. “If you keep taking shifts off and you don’t take care of the puck, it is going to start ending up in the back of your net.”
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