The Detroit Red Wings fought back, but couldn’t quite overcome the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday. They might not be able to overcome them in the Western Conference either.
Daniel Sedin netted a pair of goals, his 39th and 40th tallies of the season, to give Vancouver a 2-1 win over the Red Wings. Vancouver moved 10 points ahead of Detroit for the top spot in the Western Conference, making the Red Wings’ chances of grabbing the top seed slim.
Jiri Hudler banged home a rebound on the power play midway through the third period for Detroit, which dropped its third straight. Hudler played for the first time in three games as Detroit was without Pavel Datsyuk, Johan Franzen and Todd Bertuzzi against the Canucks.
Sedin opened the scoring 6:31 into the second period when his shot deflected off Nicklas Lidstrom and past goaltender Jimmy Howard. Sedin then made it 2-0 just over nine minutes into the third, firing a shot on the power play past a sprawled Howard who couldn’t recover from a series of Vancouver scoring chances on the play.
Jan Mursak, just called up from AHL-Grand Rapids yesterday, had the best chance to score in the first period for either team when he rang a shot off the goal post for Detroit.