The good news coming out of Joe Louis Arena on Saturday night was that the Detroit Red Wings snapped a three-game losing streak by beating the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-2. The bad news was that goaltender Jimmy Howard left during the third period after suffering an upper-body injury. Let's elaborate on the bad news first.
Howard had Toronto's Joffrey Lupul fall on him as Lupul scored a goal. Howard appeared to injure his shoulder and promptly left the game and headed to the locker room. The Red Wings are describing the injury as one of the upper-body variety, and general manager Ken Holland said after the game that it doesn't appear to be serious.
"It doesn't appear to be anything significant, day-to-day,'' Holland said. "Looks like a strain or a sprain. He's going to go for a precautionary MRI, but he looked to be OK.''
He added: "Unless the tests come back anything different, doctors don't think so (it's serious).''
Joey MacDonald replaced Howard and will likely get the start on Monday against the Chicago Blackhawks. It's expected that the Red Wings will call up Jordan Pearce from Grand Rapids to be MacDonald's backup.
Moving on to the good news, MacDonald did well in his relief appearance and helped the Wings win by a score of 4-2. Jiri Hudler scored 38 seconds after Lupul tied the game at two. Todd Bertuzzi added an empty-netter at the 19:08 mark of the third period to give the Red Wings the 4-2 victory. Henrik Zetterberg and Tomas Holmstrom scored power-play goals earlier in the game.
As mentioned previously, the Red Wings will take on Chicago on Monday. The game will be the fourth in Detroit's five-game homestand.