DETROIT _ Their homestand ended as it began: with the Detroit Red Wings in position to win but coming up short.
They completed a five-game stretch at Little Caesars Arena with a 3-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens Tuesday. Former teammate Tomas Tatar set up two of the goals.
Andreas Athanasiou had a terrific performance, scoring twice to reach six goals in his last seven games and 17 on the season, one more than the output he had last season in 71 games. Jimmy Howard had a less than stellar night, but on the upside the power play finally flickered to life after flatlining the past couple weeks.
The Wings pressed hard in the third period for a rally, but finished the homestand that began New Year's Eve 1-3-1.
The Wings did a good job gaining the offensive zone and testing Antti Niemi, throwing pucks on net and trying for rebounds. A penalty on former Habs forward Jacob de la Rose, who the Wings picked off waivers Oct. 17, saw the Wings do such a good job Howard didn't even have to make a save. A Wings power play at 13:30 had good puck movement and ended with Dennis Cholowski banging a puck off the cross bar. The Wings wrapped the first period up with another solid penalty kill and nine shots on goal, to eight from the Habs.
Less than two minutes into the second period, the Wings found themselves down by two goals. First Brendan Gallagher scored at the 30-second mark, bulling his way to the net and managing to swipe in Tatar's shot even as Gallagher was falling. There was a lot of traffic around the net on that goal, but on the second, Joel Armia pounced on a loose puck and ripped a shot that Howard should have had. The Wings pushed back right away, and were rewarded when Athanasiou had the puck in the right circle and looked like he was going to pass only to roof a shot that made it 2-1.
Athanasoiu scored again at 4:58 of the third period, during the Wings' fourth power play, when he one-timed a pass from Anthony Mantha.
The Wings came into the game 1 for 20 on man advantages through the previous eight games. They had two power plays in the second period, both with the score at 2-1. On the first, the Wings didn't have much until Filip Hronek got a shot through near the end. Tyler Bertuzzi was hit by a shot while playing in front of the net, went to the bench in pain, but was good to go for the second power play. The first minute of that one _ the Wings' third of the game, was disgraceful, as the unit manned by Dylan Larkin, Frans Nielsen, Thomas Vanek, Niklas Kronwall and Cholowski struggled to even get the puck into the offensive zone. Mantha managed a short wrist shot on Niemi, but it wasn't a god power play overall.
