SUNRISE, Fla. _ The Detroit Red Wings needed overtime to do it, but they finally won their first game of the season.
Gustav Nyquist scored to give the Wings a 4-3 victory over the Florida Panthers Saturday at BB&T Center. The Wings scored two power-play goals in 18 seconds, but made the game unnecessarily hard on themselves by skating ruts to the penalty box, and Mike Hoffman tied the game with 1:16 to go in regulation after the Panthers pulled their goaltender.
The Wings (1-5-2) were the last remaining winless team in the NHL.
The Wings entered the second period down 2-0. Keith Yandle scored on a wrist shot at 7:34 of the first period after getting a pass from Evgenii Dadonov, who put Joe Hicketts and Dennis Cholowski on their heels entering Detroit's zone, as Yandle got in behind them. Nick Bjugstad made it 2-0 at 16:10 off a faceoff. Both were goals Jimmy Howard should have stopped.
The key to getting back in the game was having their power play click. The Wings went on a two-man advantage at 5:40 when Andreas Athanasiou drew a penalty four seconds after Anthony Mantha. It took seven seconds to score _ Dennis Cholowski had the puck in the high slot and fired a shot as Michael Rasmussen played net-front. Thomas Vanek converted a pass from Frans Nielsen at 6:05.
The Wings turned the momentum into a 3-2 lead when Dylan Larkin scored at 7:50. Larkin had another scoring opportunity late in the second period after Cholowski stole the puck during a penalty kill. The Wings killed three straight penalties, and during one of them, they spent more time in Florida's zone than their own.
The Wings were faced with a penalty shot for the second time this week when Cholowski was called for hooking Aleksander Barkov on a breakaway early in the third period. Barkov whiffed on his forehand and then tried a backhand shot. The Wings then took another penalty (Luke Glendening for tripping). The Panthers power play isn't good (25th in the NHL at 13.6 percent headed into the game) but the Wings made it hard on themselves to keep playing shorthanded. It took nearly half the third period before the Wings had a shot on net.
