Helm leads Red Wings past Rangers

DETROIT - Darren Helm scored his second goal of the game with 1:57 left in overtime to help the Detroit Red Wings to a 3-2 win against the New York Rangers at Joe Louis Arena on Saturday.
Brad Richards tied the game for Detroit (34-23-11) with 31.8 seconds remaining in the third period. Defenseman Danny DeKeyser had two assists and goalie Petr Mrazek made 23 saves.

"Obviously you don't want to have to come from behind, you don't want to have to do it that way," Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "But if we play like that on a consistent basis, like we have the last two in terms of our determination and our energy, we'll beat lots of teams."

The Red Wings won it when Pavel Datsyuk's shot from the left circle deflected off the shaft of Helm's stick and past Lundqvist. It was Helm's 10th goal.
"I just tried to use my speed to get to the front of the net just hoping for some kind of puck, pass or whatever," Helm said. "If not, then I just wanted to be a screen. Luckily [Datsyuk] just shot one and it hit off my stick and found a way in. I don't know how it found a way in, but I'm happy it did."
Detroit rallied from a 2-0 second-period deficit for a 3-2 win against the Winnipeg Jets Thursday. The Red Wings are 13-1-1 in the past 15 games against the Rangers at Joe Louis Arena.
"Our mentality of getting pucks to the net, shooting pucks and being more aggressive on our toes has been better the last two games," Richards said. "Not waiting for the other team to take it to us. When you do that, things start to go your way."
Chris Kreider had a goal and an assist and Derek Stepan and scored for New York (39-22-7). Mats Zuccarello had two assists and Henrik Lundqvist, who returned after missing three games because of neck spasms, made 40 saves.

"I liked the way we played in the first period; (we) battled hard," Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. "The second, I thought that was our best period of the game and they made a push in the third."
Lundqvist knew the puck changed direction on Helm's overtime goal.
"I picked it up fine and I saw it was coming at me," Lundqvist said. "And when it went in, I knew it had hit something because it couldn't have went straight in on that angle."
Richards' power-play goal came during a 6-on-4 situation with Mrazek pulled for an extra attacker. Richards put in Henrik Zetterberg's rebound for his ninth goal.
"We missed a couple of empty nets when we were killing the penalty [before Richards' goal]; one hit the goal post and one missed the net," Vigneault said.
Kreider gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead with a power-play goal at 15:33 of the third period. He redirected Keith Yandle's shot from the right point past Mrazek for his 15th of the season.
Helm scored his first of the game 4:28 into the third period. He took a pass from Luke Glendening at the bottom of the left circle and beat Lundqvist high to the long side. It was the Red Wings' first goal against Lundqvist in 106:23 this season.

Stepan gave New York a 1-0 lead with 49 seconds left in the first period and extended his point streak to four games.
Red Wings defenseman Niklas Kronwall was helped off the ice and did not return after getting his right leg stuck and twisted between Mrazek and Rangers forward Jesper Fast during a goal-mouth scramble in the middle of the second period, leaving Detroit with five defensemen.
"I have no updates, no more than what's been said," Blashill said of Kronwall. "He's going to be evaluated so we should have more [Sunday] morning."
Rangers forward Rick Nash returned after missing 20 games because of a bone bruise in his leg. New York center Derick Brassard did not play because of the flu.