Red Wings Winners On Walman’s Last-Second Blast

Nothing like a last-second victory to fire up the faithful and that’s what the Detroit Red Wings delivered on Thursday at Little Caesars Arena. Red Wings defenseman Jake Walman blasted a point shot past Frederik Andersen with 3.2 seconds left in regulation time to give Detroit a 3-2 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes.

Coupled with Tuesday’s 7-4 drubbing of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Detroit has won two games in a row for the first time since Feb. 21-23.

Domink Kubalik reached the 20-goal plateau for the first time as an NHLer and the first-year Red Wings forward wasted little time in doing so. Taking a cross-ice feed from David Perron, Kubalik burst down the left wing, snapping a shot in off the post just 59 seconds following the opening faceoff. It was the only goal of the first period.

The second period was only 42 seconds old when a Brent Burns seeing-eye point shot found its way past a mass of sticks, legs and ultimately Red Wings goalie Alex Nedeljkovic to knot the count at 1-1. It was another Carolina defenseman, Jaccob Slavin, who would score to give the Hurricanes their first lead of the game.

However, before the second frame was out, the only Detroit player with more goals this season than Kubalik would pull the Red Wings even. Captain Dylan Larkin accepted a nifty drop pass from Alex Chiason and tucked the puck behing Carolina goalie Andersen to make it 2-2. It was Larkin’s team-leading 28th goal of the season.

Andersen dropped to 10-1-1 all-time against Detroit.. The Canes were 1-0 winners in Detroit on Dec. 13. The Hurricanes are 5-3-1 in their last nine games at Detroit.