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Canwest News Service
DETROIT – Atlanta goalie Ondrej Pavalec admitted he didn’t feel good before the game, but a hail of rubber proved a cure for his nerves.
The Thrashers’ rookie netminder stopped all 40 shots he face for his second career shutout in Atlanta’s 2-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings Wednesday at Joe Louis Arena.
“It was huge (getting of out the first period without a giving up a goal), ” said Pavelec, who faced 19 shots in the opening frame.
“I didn’t feel good before the game. It was my first game in Detroit and I was a little nervous playing against those guys.
“They had a lot of shots right away, so it got me in the game.”
It’s becoming a tired story for the Wings.
Once again Detroit significantly outshot an opponent (40-25), but their pop- gun offence of late and unreliable penalty killing doomed them to their fourth loss in five games.
During that stretch Detroit has scored only six goals.
“We got one shot, then they got to the rebounds and were out of their zone, ” defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom said. “We’ve got to get to the puck a little quicker and get second chances.”
Despite the one-sided opening period, one of the Thrashers’ eight shots eluded Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard for the period’s lone goal. Nik Antropov beat Detroit’s Ville Leino to Howard’s back post to tip in Maxim Afinogenov’s pass at 5:02.
Having counted themselves fortunate to be leading, the Thrashers showed up to work in the second period.
Atlanta drew an early power play, but couldn’t take advantage of the NHL’s third-worst penalty killing unit. The Wings had given up six power-play goals in as many games while killing off only 68 per cent of their penalties over that stretch.
As ugly as those percentages are, the goose eggs on the scoresheet for so many Detroit forwards in the past couple of weeks are even more unsightly.
Even Henrik Zetterberg seems to be coming down with bad puck luck.
After Pavelec stranded himself by giving the puck away to Leino, the Finn fired a quick cross-ice pass that Zetterberg one-timed. Somehow Pavelec scrambled back to make the desperation glove save.
“I just tried to get there as quick as possible,” Pavelec said. “I just put the glove there and he hit the glove.”
Less than two minutes later, the Wings problems on the penalty kill were obvious.
With the pairing of Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski too wide apart, Ilya Kovalchuk hit Slava Kozlov with a long pass at the Detroit line. The former Wing scooted comfortably up the middle to beat Howard at 9:08.
The Wings worked diligently enough in the third having the better of the play again but, outside of Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk, the Wings were simply devoid of ideas to solve Pavelec.
Windsor Star
dwaddell@thestar.canwest.com
