DETROIT _ The Detroit Red Wings ignited their power play only to collapse in the third period, unable to counter Quinn Hughes and the Vancouver Canucks.
A week after what players described as an unacceptable loss in Vancouver, the Wings hosted the Canucks Tuesday at Little Caesars Arena. They converted twice on power plays to take the lead, but the Canucks used two power plays to even the score early in the third period and then schooled the Wings again to the tune of a 5-2 loss.
The Wings' losing streak grew to five games and their record dropped to 3-6.
It began encouragingly enough for them, as Anthony Mantha scored his seventh goal of the season and Dennis Cholowski his first. Mantha put on a particularly noticeable performance, snap-shooting and one-timing his way to eight shots over the first two periods.
But the Wings, who had scored only once in each of their previous outings, lost momentum in the third period. They were outshot, 10-2, the first eight minutes. Hughes, who the Wings passed on drafting in 2018, factored in both of Vancouver's first two goals, firing shots that Bo Horvat turned into a 2-2 tie. Jake Virtanen scored at 12:19 of the third period and Tim Schaller made it 4-2 within two minutes. The Wings pulled Jimmy Howard for the extra attacker, but Horvat completed his hat trick with an empty-net goal.
The previous time the Wings played the Canucks they squandered 97 seconds of a two-man power play while allowing three goals to the Canucks' power play. The Wings' power play coming into Tuesday's game was gasping at 2 for 21. They received a four-minute power play at 13:17 of the first period when Brock Boeser used his stick to whack Frans Nielsen in the face, and drew a two-man advantage for 1:30 Andreas Athanasiou drew a penalty on Tyler Myers. Tyler Bertuzzi won a puck battle behind the goal line and sent the puck to Filip Hronek in the left circle. Hronek wired a pass to Mantha, whose one-timer sailed behind Jacob Markstrom for a 1-0 lead at 16:08.
Former first-round pick Evgeny Svechnikov made his season debut, starting on a line with Justin Abdelkader and Jacob de la Rose. Svechnikov, who turns 23 Oct. 31, was called up Oct. 8 and accompanied the team to Western Canada, but did not get into any games before being sent down Oct. 15. Svechnikov missed all of last season because of a knee injury, and is trying to relaunch his career. Svechnikov played sparingly in the first period (less than three minutes) but he looked really good on one of his second-period shifts, driving the puck on net and poking at the rebound. That drew the of Jake Virtanen, and Svechnikov responded with a righty that landed him in the penalty box as well.
