Trending: Resilient Red Wings down Golden Knights, 3-2

DETROIT -- Everything may not be completely right in Hockeytown, but things are certainly looking up after this past weekend for the Red Wings.
After beating the Boston Bruins, 4-2, Friday night at Little Caesars Arena, the Wings followed up that spirited performance with a gritty 3-2 win on Sunday against the always tough Vegas Golden Knights before a raucous home crowd.

Vegas was playing its third game in four nights and the second game of back-to-back contests, so at times, the game was a bit ragged.
In the second period, the teams combined for five total shots on goal. The Wings managed just two shots on net, their lowest total in a period this season, but they came out in the third period with renewed vigor.
Detroit fired 10 shots on Knights netminder Malcolm Subban in the third, taking advantage of a tired Vegas team.
Though the Wings were the fresher team, Vegas scored first when Jonathan Marchessault beat Jonathan Bernier at 16:27 of the first period.
Andreas Athanasiou tied it up on a power play at 19:15 on a wicked slapper from the top of the right circle off a perfect feed from Mike Green.

It was Athanasiou's second goal of the season and hopefully it will ignite Greece Lightning to go on one of his highlight-reel scoring tears.
Former Michigan Wolverines forward Max Pacioretty gave the Knights a 2-1 lead in the second period and that was the score heading into the third.
Madison Bowey scored the game-tying goal while airborne and Anthony Mantha's blistering slap shot at 19:29 of the third gave Detroit the victory.
Bernier (4-4-1) was stellar in goal and made several impressive saves when the Knights could have extended their lead.
The Red Wings (6-12-1) won for the second consecutive game and now hit the road for three games on the west coast where they'll face Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Jose.
Detroit's western excursion begins Tuesday in Anaheim when the Wings face off against the Ducks.
The Golden Knights' (9-7-3) next game is Wednesday night as they host the Chicago Blackhawks.

1. Anthony Mantha: Mantha can be a quixotic figure. Certainly there's no one on the Wings with his combination of size, speed and skill but there are times when Mantha is not as engaged. That was evident in the third period as Mantha was moved off the top line and onto the third line with Frans Nielsen and Brendan Perlini. But with his many gifts, Mantha can be a game-changer and was with 30.9 seconds left in regulation. He took the pass from Robby Fabbri and broke in alone, firing the puck past Subban to give his team a 3-2 lead. Dylan Larkin got the second assist on the goal, Mantha's team-leading 11th. Fabbri, who had two power-play goals Friday in his Detroit debut, has points in back-to-back games for the first time since Jan. 12-14, 2017. Mantha also tied a career high with his third game-winning goal of the season. In five career games against the Golden Knights, Mantha has four goals and two assists. He finished with 21 shifts for 17:26, had two shots, two hits, one blocked shot, was 1-for-1 in face-offs, and was even.

Quotable: "Cross-ice pass from Fabs. I mean my passing was not on point today, so I was shooting that 100 percent and just found the outside post and in. I was just going low block. I mean from that angle there it's a hard shot for goalies to handle. It's just over and over practicing it, even on our goalies. It's a hard shot for them to defend. I don't think I played the best game of the season but got out there and got the game-winner. My team gets the two points and that's what matters." - Mantha

Quotable II: "He's got such a long reach, too and it's heavy. When he puts it on net there's a lot of odds in his favor that's for sure. He's feeling it right now. I wasn't even looking and I was like 'please go in' and I just heard the post and everyone yell, so it was a really good feeling." - Bernier
Quotable III: "He's a dangerous offensive player and on a consistent basis he's been our most dangerous offensive player. I don't think he was at his best, but that's what offensive players can do, sometimes when they're not at their best, they still score. You have to score in this game. I said it the other day, our shooting percentage had been really really low, the more we can have a bunch of guys find ways to score and feel good about themselves the better and Mantha's certainly one of those guys. He's played some outstanding games. I thought he was excellent the last game. I put him on five-on-six, he scored the empty-netter, it was excellent. You're not going to have your best game every night but scorers still find ways to score and he did." - Wings coach Jeff Blashill

2. Madison Bowey: Bowey was not entertaining any Bobby Orr comparisons after the game but he definitely had a goal to remember for several reasons. Against a tired Golden Knights team and with his team trailing, 2-1, Bowey skated with the puck into the right circle. Initially looking to pass, Bowey was tripped by William Carrier and as he fell to the ice, he shot the puck toward the net. The puck eluded Subban and tied the game at 10:57. It was Bowey's first goal of the season and first in 25 games, the last coming March 14 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Bowey now has points in back-to-back games for the first time with the Wings and fourth time in his career. Bowey finished with 20 shifts for 18:44, had one shot, one blocked shot and was plus-1.

Quotable: Fabbri was open back door, I think. Until I kind of got tripped there, I was thinking about passing. Also shooting but I think as I was getting tripped, I just decided to put it on net and it went in. I kind of heard, I heard the pad in the back. I didn't know if it was the back of the net or the goalie's pad. When I saw the guys kind of come to me and celebrate, I kind of realized it went in and definitely it felt great." - Bowey
Quotable II: "I say it all the time and I don't think you all always believe me, but the league is like this, the difference from the best to a team like us, that's at the bottom, is minimal in terms of talent. There's not huge difference, not like 15 years ago when there was huge differences. So every night if you go out and play your best hockey you have a chance to win, so we just got to keep working toward building our game. Part of that becomes confidence, confidence becomes a huge factor in success in this league now. That's why you see teams go on big runs one way or the other, so we just got to keep building the confidence. The best way to build the confidence is to go into Anaheim and play a great game." - Blashill
Quotable III: "I think that's the biggest thing. We don't let that game get away from us. In this league, if you're 2-1 going into the third, even 3-1, you never know what can happen. I felt when we were struggling, we were getting down 4-1 and 4-0 and those are hard mentally to come in for the third and try to win those games. But when you're (down) 2-1, anything can happen." - Bernier
3. Jonathan Bernier: For the first time this season, Bernier started two straight games, which makes sense considering his play was a big factor in Friday night's skid-busting 4-2 win over the Boston Bruins. The Wings have made a concerted effort to play Bernier more this season as opposed to last season when Jimmy Howard got the majority of the starts. Against the Bruins, Bernier was sharp, especially when superstar David Pastrnak had a golden opportunity, and he had to be sharp again when the Golden Knights were spending lots of time in the zone. At 16:27 of the first, the Wings allowed a 2-on-1 with Marchessault finishing after getting the pass from Reilly Smith. In a rather dull second period, Pacioretty provided the offense, scoring at 9:04. But Bernier stood tall in the third when the Wings were killing off a penalty, stopping Shea Theodore, Paul Stastny and Nate Schmidt. Then, as the Golden Knights had the extra attacker late, Bernier stoned Smith with 14 seconds left. Bernier finished with 17 saves.

Quotable: "Yeah, I feel good. Obviously the PK, we're doing a much better job and it's more predictable. Obviously it was a big save on that rebound there to keep us in the game at 2-1. Then we find a way to score a big goal to tie it up and Mo (Mantha) again. It wasn't a perfect game, I don't think. We know in this room our effort was there for the full 60 but it's hard to win in this league, so we'll take every win we can." - Bernier
Quotable II: "Confidence is better for him right now. I talked to him after the game. Obviously he's playing great hockey and he's making great saves for us. It's a big help for the team." - Mantha
Quotable III: "I thought for the most we defended not bad, we didn't give up a whole bunch, although we had two two-on-ones, one they scored one, we haven't done that in a while. I didn't think we were nearly as sharp as we need to be. I think we've played lots of games where we deserved to win and didn't win. Tonight was a game that, I don't know that we deserved to lose, but I didn't think we played our best and we found a way to win. That's part of getting the job done in this league. We scored a power-play goal and our kill was good. Part of the kill being good is Bernie made a huge save on the kill and Bernie made a huge save five-on-six. In this league, you got to have specialty teams and you got to have goaltending and we got both of those tonight." - Blashill