Teemu Pulkkinen capped off a big week for the Detroit Red Wings.
Pulkkinen scored with 18.8 seconds remaining in overtime to lift the Red Wings to a 4-3 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night, giving Detroit its third win in four games this week.
“We played some really good hockey teams,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “We want to measure ourselves against what we think are some of the best teams in the league and see how we stack up. … This is obviously a real good hockey team and on the road it’s an impressive win for us.”
Pavel Datsyuk, Luke Glendening and Dylan Larkin also scored and Jimmy Howard made 30 saves for the Red Wings. Detroit’s 3-0-1 week included a 3-2 win at home over Los Angeles on Friday night.
“It’s huge,” Pulkkinen said of Saturday’s victory. “We’ve been struggling a little bit playing back to backs and it was good to get the four points.”
Blashill said he thought it was the best back-to-back game his team has played this season.
“The one Ottawa game we were both in the same boat,” he said. “In this one, they were rested, we weren’t. So I thought from that aspect it was really good. They certainly pushed at times _ they’re a really good hockey team _ but I thought we had lots of pushes back as well. I was happy with our overall performance.”
Kyle Brodziak, Jori Lehtera and Vladimir Tarasenko scored for St. Louis, while Jake Allen made 28 saves. The Blues have lost four of six.
“I don’t think it’s a disappointment. I think we were lucky to get a point,” Allen said. “I don’t think we played our best as a group as a whole, myself included. Vladi saved us there and got us a point.”
The Red Wings scored first, midway through the first period, after Datsyuk beat Allen for his first of the season after a pass from Brad Richards behind the net.
The goal gave Datsyuk 76 points (26 goals, 50 assists) in 66 career games against St. Louis.
The Blues tied it with 6:50 left in the first period on Brodziak’s top-shelf wrister to the glove side after getting behind the defence with an up-ice pass from Kevin Shattenkirk.
Then the Blues took the lead with 5:10 remaining in the first on Lehtera’s redirection of a Jay Bouwmeester shot toward the net.
Detroit tied it with Glendening’s first goal of the season with 1:29 remaining in the first, assisted by Darren Helm and Brendan Smith.
Larkin redirected a long shot from Henrik Zetterberg midway through the second period for his eighth of the season and a 3-2 lead.
“It hit me in the chest, so I’ll take it,” Larkin said.
It was the fourth goal in four games for the 19-year-old forward, who became the first teenager to score in four straight games for Red Wings since Steve Yzerman in 1984-85, according to information provided by the team from the Elias Sports Bureau.
Tarasenko tied the score with his 13th of the season with just 2:10 remaining in the third period, assisted by Shattenkirk.
The Red Wings went on the power play with 1:56 remaining in overtime after Colton Parayko was called for interference, turning the 3-on-2 extra session into a 4-on-3.
Pulkkinen took advantage after the Blues won a face-off but were unable to clear the puck from the defensive zone. His sixth goal of the season was assisted by Richards and Tomas Tatar.
“We had two guys going hard on the puck and we got the puck back and I think Shea (Riley Sheahan) made a pass to Richie and Richie made a nice pass to me,” Pulkinnen said. “That’s my game — I try to shoot it when I have a chance. So it was nice to see the puck go in.”
NOTES: St. Louis F Alexander Steen played in his 700th career game. . Parayko returned after missing two games with a lower-body injury. . The Red Wings waived F Landon Ferraro on Saturday. He missed the past seven games with a knee injury. . The Blues reassigned F Jeremy Welsh to the Chicago Wolves of the AHL on Saturday.
