DETROIT – The refs tried hard to prevent it, but a great hockey game broke out Thursday night in the third period at Joe Louis Arena, after only bits and pieces of the game were allowed to be played at even-strength in the first 40 minutes.
Alex Burrows was the only player to score in a shootout to give the Canucks a 4-3 win in game that featured three goals in the final 6½ minutes of the third period, one of them Daniel Sedin’s second goal of the game with 16 seconds remaining in regulation.
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Please, please, gods of hockey, don’t let a Phoenix or Dallas upset one of these teams in the first round: Allow them to meet in the Western Conference final.
There hasn’t been a dud of a game between these two this season.
And they’ve decided nothing.
Each is 2-1-1, each has come into the other’s building and walked away with two points.
They are a point apart in the standings, Detroit ahead but Vancouver with a game in hand.
Then there was Detroit’s amazing 23-game home winning streak, which the Canucks put an end to.
“I think the reason these teams are at the top of the standings is because they play like this almost every night,” Detroit native David Booth said. “That was a hard-fought game by both teams.”
It started out, however, like it was some gimmick drawn up by the committee that dreams up the competitions at all-star games, in this case special-team versus special special-team.
The Red Wings had three first-period power plays, the Canucks one.
You could argue against all four calls, but Daniel Sedin’s goalie-interference penalty was particularly irksome given he was shoved into Jimmy Howard by Ian White.
Then Booth, while checking puck-carrier Darren Helms, managed to floor the Wing with a good shove to the chest with an open palm and got a holding penalty as a result.
“I didn’t know who was getting the penalty,” Booth said. “I thought there’d been a high stick or something, I thought one of their guys had the penalty.
“When the refs let us play in the third I thought it was a great game.”
It was.
Despite outshooting the Wings 17-5 in the first period, the Canucks trailed 1-0 after Kevin Bieksa, up to his best high-risk/hope-for-high-reward self, tried to toe-drag the puck at the Detroit blueline.
He gave the puck up to Helm — who along with Justin Abdelkader were the most dangerous Wings all night — and Helm beat -Roberto Luongo on a partial fan on a 2-on-1.
Daniel Sedin made it 1-1 in the second period before the wild third broke out.
Kyle Quincey, playing his first game with the Wings since being acquired from Tampa Bay on Tuesday, atoned for a couple of penalties and made it 2-1, then Cody Hodgson tied it with 6:34 to go in the third.
But Abdelkader from Helm made it 3-2 just 20 seconds later, leading to Daniel Sedin’s late heroics.
The Canucks could have given up after totally dominating the first period, playing pretty much the perfect opening 20 minutes for a road team.
They weathered a fevered Detroit attack the final couple of minutes of the second.
And they bounced back twice in the third to knot the game again.
“For us, it’s a little bit of confidence, we know we can come in this building and play a good road game,” Burrows said.
“We looked at their record before their last home loss and 10 of their [23] wins were by three goals or more, so it’s pretty scary for other teams to come into this building.
“It’s nice to be the team that ended their stretch, but that was a remarkable stretch.
“That is one good team over there.”
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