Trending: Red Wings show resolve, defeat Maple Leafs, 3-2, in OT
DeKeyser nets overtime winner; Athanasiou doles out three assists
by Arthur J. Regner @ArthurJRegner / DetroitRedWings.com
DETROIT -- On a night when Detroit retired Red Kelly's number, the Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs played a fast-paced, entertaining game which saw the Red Wings skate away with a 3-2 overtime victory before a raucous crowd at Little Caesars Arena.
Gustav Nyquist, Dylan Larkin (power play) and Danny DeKeyser scored for the Wings and Andreas Athanasiou assisted on all three Detroit goals. Auston Matthews and Patrick Marleau lit the lamp for the Leafs.
Detroit goaltender Jimmy Howard had 19 saves. Toronto netminder Frederik Andersen had 30 saves.
The Wings improved to 20-25-7. The Maple Leafs are 30-17-3 with the overtime loss.
Up next for Detroit is the second game of a home-road back-to-back with a quick trip to Ottawa Saturday night. Toronto is also playing back-to-back, returning home to host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.
1. Dylan Larkin: As usual, Larkin was all over the ice trying to make something happen. Earlier in the day, Toronto coach Mike Babcock called Larkin a "dominant player" with "great intensity." His relentless effort paid off when he scored the Wings' second goal on the power play off a perfect feed from Thomas Vanek. Larkin fired the puck, beating Andersen, who desperately was trying to make a save on a puck which was in and out of the net so quickly that only Larkin initially was celebrating his goal. Replays showed clearly it was a goal and the Little Caesars Arena crowd erupted. There was a scary moment in overtime when Larkin appeared to sustain an injury when he was chasing down Mitch Marner. Although he continued to play, once he got to the Wings bench, a hunched over Larkin immediately went to the Detroit dressing room and did not return. Larkin had a goal and was plus-1 in 21:20 of action.
Quotable: "I would say this, right now I'm hoping he plays tomorrow. It's not something where I hear news he's not, he doesn't have a chance. Right now, I'm hoping he plays tomorrow so we'll see. (It's) a little bit of an upper body. We'll see. I'll know more tomorrow. He's going to travel." -- Wings coach Jeff Blashill on Larkin's condition
2. Gustav Nyquist: Nyquist was one of the main drivers when the Red Wings were on the attack in the offensive zone in the second period. Andersen stopped his shot, but the rebound stayed alive. After Athanasiou had a shot, the rebound popped out to Nyquist, who was easily able to score with Andersen out of position after making the initial save. It was Nyquist's 12th goal of the season, tying him with Anthony Mantha for fourth on the team. Larkin leads with 22, Athanasiou has 17 and Tyler Bertuzzi has 13. Nyquist has 45 points in 52 games, four more than he had in 82 games last season. He also had the primary assist on DeKeyser's overtime winner. In 25 career games against the Maple Leafs, Nyquist has 10 goals and nine assists.
Quotable: "It was great. It started off with a really cool experience for us to be a part of with the banner raising into the rafters with Red Kelly. That was pretty cool to watch. Then obviously they got a lot of fans, we got a lot of fans, so it's fun when they come to visit. I think we're all on the same page. We know what we have to do to be successful. I think most nights, our effort's pretty good. We work hard for each other. It's been a lot of positives. It was kind of a nice ping-pong bounce there and it was just an empty net for me. But it's nice to get those every once in a while, too." -- Nyquist
3. Danny DeKeyser: Since he's returned to the Red Wings lineup after missing 19 games with an injury to his left hand, DeKeyser has four points in five games. Because he's a good skater, DeKeyser has been an asset in overtime and it paid off for the Wings against the Leafs. He scored into a wide-open net at 2:40 of OT to give the Wings the victory. The play was set up by Nyquist, who showed great patience skating around Toronto defenders in the offensive zone until he sent a pass across the ice to DeKeyser, who was camped out on the right side of the Leafs net. It was DeKeyser's second goal of the season. In 25 games, DeKeyser has two goals, nine assists, is plus-9 with an ice time average of 21:08.
Quotable: "I caught it with my skate, I was thinking he might get there actually, and he got a piece of it, I think, and then it went in. Andersen played great all night, so it was good to see that go in. It's tough coming back off a nine-day break there but it was both teams. I thought we came out really good in the first, played with a lot of energy and competed hard, obviously had a lot of chances there in the first that we didn't put in, but we played hard. We're maturing a little bit as a group. Obviously, we've got a little bit of a younger team than we've had in the past here this year. Guys, I think, are starting to find their way, find rhythms and stuff like that. That's definitely good to see." -- DeKeyser
Quotable II: "I thought in my first year, we were enough nights a good team and then the last couple of years, we've had to change the way we played. I've talked lots about that. I think we've had to understand it and buy into it and sometimes that's a process. I think guys have had to grow. I think a lot of that growth is happening. So I think all those things combined put us in a spot where it looks like our arc is starting to move up. Now in order for the arc to move up, we gotta keep grinding here. It's a relentless league and you gotta play every single night. We got a good challenge ahead of us tomorrow (in Ottawa) and we gotta make sure we're ready to work." -- Blashill
4. Red Kelly: Before the Red Wings and Maple Leafs renewed their longstanding rivalry, Detroit retired Kelly's No. 4 in a heartfelt ceremony emceed by Mickey Redmond and Ken Daniels. With his family by his side, Kelly watched his No. 4 ascend to the Little Caesars Arena rafters alongside the seven other Wings legends to have the same honor bestowed upon them. Kelly played 13 years in Detroit, won four Stanley Cups, was the first recipient of the Norris Trophy as the NHL's best defenseman and captured three Lady Byng Trophies for sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct while maintaining a high level of play. In 846 games with the Red Wings, Kelly notched 162 goals and 310 assists for 472 points. A fleet skater with an uncanny ability to always make the right play, Kelly is not only a Red Wings immortal, he's one of the best players to ever lace them up.
Quotable: "I think Red was more underrated because he was also a penalty killer. He could play defense. They were such a powerful team. They had (Sid) Abel, (Ted) Lindsay and (Gordie) Howe. Dutch Reibel came in for a year and then Alex Delvecchio played with that line. Red was always on the ice. They only had three lines and two sets of defensemen in those days, maybe one extra forward and one extra defenseman. That's all they dressed, so Red played a lot with the Production Line, which made it real tough for them to stop. I don't know where it came from but any pass that was in his skates went from his skates to his stick. You noticed it more when he was a forward because usually as a defenseman he'd lug the puck. He'd carry the puck. In the era that he played in, defensemen, they were big and sometimes they weren't as quick as the forwards." -- former Wings coach Scotty Bowman