OTTAWA, Ontario _ The Detroit Red Wings started well, but then played like a team with nothing much left.
The Wings lost Tuesday at Canadian Tire Centre, 2-0, to the Ottawa Senators, who are vying for home ice advantage when the playoffs start next week. The Wings will count down their season with two more games, both at home as all they have left to do is say farewell to Joe Louis Arena before heading into a long offseason.
The Wings tried to overturn a sluggish second period that left them trailing by two goals going into the third period. They got their first power play with a minute to go in the second, but spill-over time was nullified when Justin Abdelkader took a tripping penalty at the end of the 40 minutes.
Jimmy Howard made a sharp glove save on a great opportunity from Mike Hoffman 5 minutes into the third period. The Senators blocked shots and disrupted the Wings when they tried to get on the score board. Howard went to the bench with 2:30 to go in regulation. Niklas Kronwall sent a slap shot on net as the Wings reached 10 shots for the period, Final shots were 24 apiece.
Meeting 24 hours after the Wings topped the Senators, 5-4, in a shootout in Detroit, both teams were slower out of the gate. Mike Green took a pass from Kronwall and tried a shot through traffic past 5 minutes in as scoring chances were scant. Howard saw but one shot through 6 minutes. After 13 minutes, the Wings had an 8-3 edge in shots.
The Senators got the lead on their fourth, when Erik Karlsson scored from an absurd angle, somehow finding the back of the net even as he shot through traffic along the goal line. The Wings outshot the Senators, 11-6, in the first period.
Howard had a heavier workload as the Senators pressed for another goal to start the second period. The Wings, much as the night before, weren't as hard on the puck, weren't as fluid generating shots. They fell behind, 2-0, when Tom Pyatt scored a soft goal on Howard at 7:49. The Wings had just one shot for the period at that point.
A boarding call on Henrik Zetterberg left the Wings shorthanded midway through the second period, further hampering their offense. The Wings had good shifts here and there _ from Dylan Larkin's line with Evgeny Svechnikov, from Tomas Nosek on the fourth line _ but had a difficult time putting pucks on Craig Anderson. When they got a power play with a minute to play, the Wings had just two shots to show for the second period. Zetterberg had a slap shot turned away to get the Wings to three.
