Red Wings end skid with 7-4 win over Tampa

In Detroit, the Red Wings broke open a tight, 3-3, game with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday night with a four-goal spree in the third period to take a 7-4 win, and end a six-game schneid.

Michael Rasmussen hit for a double and four points in the win.

“When you see your teammates battling through something, it just makes you want to play even harder,” Rasmussen said. “We all know what guys are dealing with, and we’re trying to pick up the slack as much as we can.”

Ville Husso made 34 saves in the Detroit win.

The Red Wings improved to 14-11-7.

“I’m happy with this result, because anyone who saw us in this stretch knows we’ve been better than 0-4-2,” Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said. “We’ve been tied going into the third three or four times lately without being able to finish it off, but today we did.”

Ross Colton and Nikita Kucherov had strikes for the Lightning.

“This definitely adds to the frustration, because last night’s game was completely unacceptable,” Colton said. “We talked about it in the locker room, and we really wanted to come out here with a strong showing, especially with Friday canceled. This is a sour note to end on.”

The Lightning dropped to 20-11-1.

Tampa took a 1-0 lead on a Brayden Point goal in the first, then let a two-skater advantage slip through their mitts. They took 11 shots over 1:53 of the penalties, but none got through.

“When you let a two-minute 5-on-3 slide by, it is going to change the game,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “They got some momentum out of it, and I thought we felt sorry for ourselves.

“What is that Ted Lasso says? You have to have the memory of a goldfish.”

The two teams traded the goals in the first to enter the middle frame tied, 2-2.

Olli Maatta hit for a goal to get the game even at 1-1, before Alex Killorn scored for a 2-1 lead back to ampa.

Rasmussen scored his first with 28 seconds left in the period for the 2-2 tie.

Dylan Larkin put the Red Wings back up at 3-2 in the second period.

“This felt like a playoff game, just like [Monday] night in Washington felt like a playoff game (4-3 overtime loss),” said Larkin. “This is a team that has won three straight conference titles and two straight Stanley Cups, and we’re a young team, so I’m proud of the way we’ve played them.”

The game went to the third tied, 3-3, on Colton’s goal.

In the third, Detroit’s Elmer Soderblom scored, and Larkin picked up his second of the game for a 5-3 lead.

“They were checking hard, just like every team does in that situation, and they got rewarded for a mishap,” Lightning forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare said. “After that, we were chasing a little bit.”

Nikita Kucherov cut the deficit to 5-4, for Tampa, but Detroit added two more markers in the third.

David Perron scored into an empty net at 17:27, and Rasmussen potted his second of the night into an empty net as well for the 7-4 final.