It was an emotional night for Frans Nielsen, playing his first game against his former team. The Islanders had a video tribute for Nielsen at the first commerical timeout.
1. Mike Green: In his 100th game as a Red Wing, Green made it count. Green tied the game at 1 at 12:53 of the first period when he joined the rush and took a perfect pass from Nielsen and blasted it past Islanders goaltender Jaroslav Halak. Green jumped into the play again at 14:40 of the second and got another beautiful pass, this time from Thomas Vanek, and scored his second goal of the game. It appeared that Green would get his second hat trick of the season when his shot at 6:32 of the third eluded Halak. But the Islanders challenged that Luke Glendening had interfered with Halak and the goal was waved off.
Quotable: "Sometimes they're there and sometimes they're not. Tonight, they were there. Van and Nielsen made great passes. I just had to kind of put it on net, especially the one from Nielsen. You've got to find those times where you can jump in and create offense from the back end and tonight there were some holes to do that." - Green
2. Henrik Zetterberg: Zetterberg continues to lead the team, in scoring and in every way. Zetterberg got his sixth goal of the season at 13:06 of the third, extending his goal-scoring streak to three games. Zetterberg has 19 points to lead the team.
Quotable: "He was excellent. I thought Frans Nielsen was excellent. Z's been real good all year. he just seems to continue to go. Z's one of those funny players where the more ice time he gets the more juice he has in his legs it seems like. I couldn't get them out there enough. I thought that line was really playing well." - Wings coach Jeff Blashill
3. Danny DeKeyser: DeKeyser was on the ice when the Islanders tied the game at 3 late in the third period. But perhaps inspired by his Western Michigan Broncos winning the MAC championship to remain undefeated and making the Cotton Bowl, DeKeyser scored at 1:02 of overtime to deliver the much-needed two points for his team. Tomas Tatar and Zetterberg assisted, It was DeKeyser's first goal in 25 games.
Quotable: "I hopped on the ice, they had the puck. (John) Tavares came down. Once we got it from him. I knew he had been out there for a little bit, he was tired, so I just tried to jump in front of him. He was holding my stick a little bit, which I wasn't happy about but I was able to beat him up the ice and then Tats saw me there. I was yelling for it and he found me and it went in." - DeKeyser
