Halfway through the second period, the Wings got burned by one of their former teammates. Slava Kozlov took a pass from Atlanta captain Ilya Kovalchuk behind the Wings' defense, and walked in on a breakaway. Kozlov put a move on goaltender
Jimmy Howard, and beat him five-hole. It gave the Thrashers a two-goal lead, and they never let the Red Wings get back into the contest.
Though he won't get the victory Wednesday night, Howard turned in another great game for the Red Wings. The young netminder made 23 save on the night, including stops on the talented Kovalchuk. He did as much as he could to keep the Wings in the game, but he wasn't able to get any help from the offense.
He couldn't find the scoresheet, but I thought
Pavel Datsyuk had an impressive game for the Wings. He ran into a hot goaltender in Ondrej Pavelec, but pulled all his usual creative moves with the puck to try to beat him. At one point, Datsyuk even flipped the puck over the net from behind the goal, which almost broke the shutout for the Wings. On the night, Datsyuk had 21:01 of ice-time, along with four shots, three takeaways, and seven face-off wins.
The Wings fired 40 shots at Pavelec Wednesday night, including 19 in the first period. He stopped all of them, giving the Thrashers only their third win in franchise history over the Wings. It was the Wings' first time this season the Wings failed to record a goal.
Here's what captain
Nicklas Lidstrom had to say after the game:
"When we're not able to score the goals, it's hard to win games. I thought we battled hard, I thought we came out hard in the first period. In the second I thought we let them into the game a little bit too easy, but in the third i thought we kept working hard. But right now we're not able to score the goals."
Derek Meech played in his seventh game of the season against the Thrashers. He had five shifts for 3:45.
Patrick Eaves was a healthy scratch.
The Wings continue their homestand when they welcome the Calgary Flames to Joe Louis Arena on Friday night. The game is SOLD-OUT, but you can still get tickets through Ticketmaster's TicketExchange:
CLICK HERE.
