Trending: Hurricanes dictate tempo in win over Wings

DETROIT -- It was not the optimal start to a three-game homestand nor a good follow-up to the first win of the season.
Instead, the Red Wings came out flat and the Carolina Hurricanes earned a 3-1 victory at Little Caesars Arena Monday night.

Andreas Athanasiou scored for Detroit while Justin Faulk (power play), Micheal Ferland (power play) and Jordan Martinook (shorthanded empty net) scored for Carolina.
Jimmy Howard had 36 saves for the Wings while Petr Mrazek only needed to make 20 saves.
The Wings fell to 1-6-2 while the Hurricanes improved to 5-3-1.
Detroit will host Winnipeg on Friday night at Little Caesars Arena while Carolina returns home to face the San Jose Sharks the same night.
1. Jimmy Howard: If there was one player whose effort was unquestioned Monday night, that was Howard. The Hurricanes came into the game averaging 42.1 shots per game and they stuck to that script. Howard was under siege for virtually all of the first two periods. The veteran netminder stopped Warren Foegele on a 2-on-1 at 6:06 of the first, Justin Williams during a Carolina power play at 8:54 of the first but couldn't prevent defenseman Justin Faulk from scoring from the right point during a man-advantage at 18:25 of the first. The Hurricanes had 14 shots before the Wings had one, when rookie defenseman Dennis Cholowski finally got the puck on net at 13:31 of the opening period.
Quotable: "They've been doing that to teams all year. They get lots of shots, lots of opportunities on net. I knew it was going to be like that coming into tonight. There's no excuse the way we came out and played. That's unexcusable. For them, probably losing three in a row had something to do with it. They were tenacious on the puck, they won a lot more battles than us." -- Howard
Quotable II: "That was two different teams. In the first two we had one player playing and that was Howie. We didn't give ourselves a chance. Howie kept us in the game. And in the third, that's the urgency we gotta bring. I think it's not just the young guys, it's all of us. It starts with myself. All of us in here. It's starting to get a little old, coming in here after games and talking to you guys and trying to explain things. It's madness what we're doing to ourselves. Carolina's a good team, there's no doubt about that. But when you don't even play, it's tough to give yourself a chance." -- Niklas Kronwall
2. Special teams: Just as special teams were instrumental in the Wings' 4-3 overtime win at Florida Saturday night, they were one of the culprits in the loss to the Hurricanes Monday. The Hurricanes came into the game ranked last in the league with the man-advantage at 6.7 percent. Yet their first two goals by Faulk and Ferland both came on the power play, doubling their power-play goal total. The Hurricanes were also ranked last on the penalty kill at 65.4 percent but managed to kill off all four Detroit chances. The best opportunity came at 15:19 of the third when Mrazek was sprawled on the ice after making the first save, then Faulk jumped in front of Athanasiou's chance and then while prone, Mrazek somehow prevented Michael Rasmussen from knocking the rebound home.
Quotable: "Yeah, it was two good chances. (Frans Nielsen) had a good chance there and (Mrazek) made a good save and I don't know, he somehow got his arm on that one, I thought I had an empty net but that's tough. You think it's going to be a tie game after that and Faulk makes a good play." -- Athanasiou
Quotable II: "Again, I think what happens is when you're not ready, you can push whatever buttons you want, it's hard to wake up when you're not ready and you swim for a bit. Thankfully we were only down 2-0, that was the biggest message going into the third. We were thankfully down 2-0, on the power play, let's go find a way to steal a point here. Obviously we had a couple looks where we could have stolen a point potentially. You don't control tons and tons when you're on the bench if not enough guys aren't playing because there's only so many guys you can sit. What I do control is tomorrow." -- Wings coach Jeff Blashill
Quotable III: "We probably missed our assignment on the second one maybe. All in all, the first one was a point shot. Sometimes those things can go through. There's no doubt that we can do better in those situations and areas as well, but all in all, the performance has to be better than that." -- Kronwall on the penalty kill
3. Andreas Athanasiou: Athanasiou has been able to finish more since moving to Nielsen's wing than he did when he was at center. At 12:02 of the third, Nielsen sprung Athanasiou and Thomas Vanek on a 2-on-1 and Vanek got the puck to Athanasiou at the left side of the net for his third goal of the season. In six games against Carolina, Athanasiou has three goals and three assists. Athanasiou finished with 22 shifts for 16:00, had a team-high three shots, one giveaway, was 1-for-3 in face-offs and was even.

Quotable: "Really nice pass by Vanny, Frans made a good pass to him, hit him down and he kind of just put it backdoor and I just had an empty net. It was a good play from Fransie and Vanny." -- Athanasiou