Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Panthers Break Red Wings Again

     Stephen Weiss made his return to South Florida on Tuesday night as the Florida Panthers came back with a 3-2 shootout victory over the Detroit Red Wings at BB&T Center. Weiss was drafted by the Panthers in this arena back in 2001 and played with the Cats from 2002 until 2013.
     The Cats edged the Red Wings 2-1 at Joe Louis Arena on Saturday night. It was their second regulation win and third overall victory in Panthers history at Michigan.
     Detroit(15-9-8) got the lead on their second power play of the game at 10:26 of the first period. Pavel Datsyuk shot the puck from the top left circle and Todd Bertuzzi swept in the rebound from the left side of the crease behind Tim Thomas.
     The Red Wings scored again at 6:47 into the second period and extended their lead to 2-0. Johan Frazen passed the puck from the right corner to Jonathan Ericsson near the right point. He sent a cross-ice pass to Datsyuk in the low left circle where put in a wrist shot into a half-open net.
     Florida(10-17-7) mounted a comeback during the third period. They cut it to 2-1 with 15 minutes remaining. Dmitry Kulikov blasted a left-point shot that was redirected by Sean Bergenheim at the top left circle.
     The Cats got a one-man effort by Nick Bjugstad to tie the game with 5:22 left. He carried the puck from the left corner around two defenders and flicked a shot over the left shoulder of Jimmy Howard.
     The game went into a shootout and the Cats got ahead on their first attempt as Aleksander Barkov held off and poked a backhand shot in. The Wings evened it during their second attempt when Tomas Tatar snapped a shot between the legs of Thomas. Brad Boyes clinched the contest on the Cats third attempt with a wrist shot under the left arm of Howard.     
     Thomas improved to 9-10-1 as he stopped 24 shots while Howard fell to 6-8-7 as he made 25 saves. The Panthers were scoreless on the power play in three opportunities and the Red Wings went 1-for-4.

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