In Detroit, Jake Walman scored with four seconds left in regulation to stun the Carolina Hurricanes in a 3-2 win for the Red Wings on Thursday night. 
The Canes’ lead in the Metropolitan Division was trimmed to one point as the New York Rangers were edged by the New Jersey Devils, 2-1, on Thursday.
“That’s brutal, because we played well enough to win and we gave away the points at the end,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We just didn’t get any breaks and then we took a breather at the end of the game, and it ended up in our net.”
Andrew Copp set up the game-winner.
“That was just a great play by (Copp), really,” Walman said. “We were going for broke, because there wasn’t much time left. He made a really good pass and we had a screen in front.”
Detroit improved to 33-32-9, David Peron continued his hot streak with two assists in the game.
“He’s a huge part of this team,” Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said. “He only knows one way to play, and that’s been important on a team where some guys have struggled for motivation since the trading deadline (on March 3).”
Alex Nedeljkovic made 31 saves for the win over his former club.
“It’s nice to get a couple games in a row and get into a good rhythm,” Nedeljkovic said. “It’s always special to play against a former team, and I like playing against those guys.”
Detroit took a 1-0 lead in the first period on Dominik Kubalik‘s 20th of the campaign.
“If you told us at the beginning of the season that (Kubalik) would give us 20 goals, we would have taken that in a heartbeat,” Lalonde said. “He’s been a really nice addition.”
Carolina dropped to 47-18-9 off their third straight loss.
Brent Burns tied the game, 1-1, on 22 seconds of fresh in the middle frame.
Jaccob Slavin scored at 4:18 to give the Canes a 2-1 lead in the second.
“[Nedeljkovic] played really well, especially in the third period, but we have to make it harder on him,” Slavin said. “We have to get more traffic in front and we’ve got to get better shots on the power play.”
Dylan Larkin scored off the power play at 7:20 to knot the 2-2, setting up the late game heroics. 
Frederik Andersen made 19 saves in the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.