DETROIT – Andreas Athanasiou stood at the top of the right circle and saw the puck bouncing his way, a wobbly backhand pass from linemate Joakim Andersson.
Athanasiou figured he had two choices here: Either he could settle the puck down and hope to get the shot off, or he could one-time it, and hope for the best.
The 21-year-old Red Wings rookie went with option No. 2.
“It was rolling, so you know, the old knuckle puck,” Athanasiou said, grinning, following Detroit’s 2-0 win over Tampa Bay on Sunday night. “You never know where it’s gonna go.”
Once he connected with that slapshot, Athanasiou — known in this Red Wings locker room as “As,” “Double A,” “Ace,” or “anything to shorten my name” — lost track of the puck.
“I couldn’t really see it. Then I heard the crowd roar, and it kind of startled me, so I realized it went in,” he said, standing in front of his stall, hands on his hips, barefoot, wearing a backwards mesh Red Wings hat, a black T-shirt shirt and shorts.
“Then, I blacked out.”
What a night for the kid from Woodbridge, Ont., who scored the first playoff goal of his career and kickstarted Detroit’s offence to help the Red Wings cut their deficit to 2-1 in this first-round series.
And what a night for Detroit.
The return of playoff hockey to Hockeytown for the 25th straight season — the longest active post-season streak for any North American pro sports team — was full of good news for a team that found itself in a two-game hole heading into Sunday night.
It had a bit of everything, too: At least 13 octopuses were launched onto the ice at various points, and the game ended with Brian Boyle skating away from Justin Abdelkader while clucking his arms like a chicken after the two almost fought following the final buzzer.
It turned out a little change was good for the Red Wings: A change in venue. A change between the pipes. And some shaking up of the forward lines.
Petr Mrazek posted a shutout in his first start of this post-season after backing up Jimmy Howard the last two games. Henrik Zetterberg ended a 13-game scoreless streak (thanks to both skates, which inadvertently nudged the puck past Lightning goalie Ben Bishop to make it 2-0). And Detroit shut down the line of Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn and Nikita Kucherov, the trio that accounted for seven of Tampa’s eight goals in the first two games of the series.
It was the line of Luke Glendening, Riley Sheahan and Abdelkader who were assigned the task of matching up against Tampa’s No. 1 unit.
“I think it’s the first time we’ve played together as a line this year,” Glendening said.
Obviously, they clicked. Detroit limited Tampa to just 16 shots.
But early on in this one, you wondered if Detroit was ever going to score. It wasn’t that Bishop was robbing them and making highlight-reel save after highlight-reel save, it’s that they’d had so many chances and so many power play opportunities they couldn’t convert on — in all, the Red Wings were 0-7 with the man advantage.
The biggest squandered opportunity came in the first period, when, for 59 seconds, Detroit had a 5-on-3, with Johnson and former triplet linemate Ondrej Palat serving two minutes apiece for tripping. Pavel Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Abdelkader, Mike Green and Brad Richards managed just two shots.
Had Athanasiou not broken open the scoring, the story of the night could’ve been Detroit’s anemic power play. But while his goal at 12:42 of the second period got the Red Wings going, a bigger topic of conversation post-game, and one of the big stories of the night, was the spin-o-rama move he pulled in the first.
One-on-one against defenseman Jason Garrison, Athanasiou reversed back one direction, and then the other, causing Garrision to blow a tire and fall to the ice. Then he ripped a wrist shot — a little high — while the crowd gasped.
“Once I did the spin-o-rama, I saw the D lose an edge there, so when I cut back, I knew I had a little bit of time,” Athanasiou said. “I saw an opening there, and I tried it. Unfortunately, I put it a little wide. That would have been a nice one to get early in the game.”
When he got back to the bench, Zetterberg told him: “Nice move.”
Said Athanasiou, grinning: “That’s really good to hear from him.”
Athanasiou logged a playoff-high 9:05 of ice time on Sunday. The fourth-round pick in 2012 played only 7:33 last game, and 8:45 in Game 1. When he checked the back of a stats sheet and saw how many minutes he logged Sunday, he said, “not bad.”
“It would be nice to get more, obviously, but I’m making the most of what I get.”
Born in London, Ont., Athanasiou’s family moved to Mississauga when he was five, and they now live in Woodbridge. He grew up watching the Leafs on Saturday nights on Hockey Night in Canada.
He’s soft-spoken, smiles a lot, and if a mike gets close to his face he’ll apologize, move it away a little, and point out, “It’s not ice cream.”
The kid they call “Double A,” “Ace,” and “As,” has also earned a new nickname from fans: The Greek Freak. “That’s starting to come out more often now,” he said. “I like that one. That’s really good.”
That he scored his first playoff goal hadn’t quite sunk in immediately after the game, and Athanasiou figures that’s going to take some time.
“It’s surreal,” he said. “Scoring that first goal, hearing the fans go crazy, it’s an unbelievable feeling. Gives me chills.”
The series resumes Tuesday at Joe Louis Arena for Game 4.
