Red Wings end losing streak in 3-1 win over Hurricanes

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The Red Wings brought an end to a losing streak at the Little Caesars Arena Saturday night. A milestone from captain Henrik Zetterberg was just the start of Detroit’s 3-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes. It added their fifth loss in a row while it brought life to the home team who has struggled over the course of the week.

Detroit’s home loss to the Buffalo Sabres put them in a spot of high vulnerability with less only 22 games left to play and the postseason shutting its door for a second straight season in Hockeytown. While they gained a point from Thursday’s loss, it would be either team coming out victorious with both on a losing streak. Carolina suffered a tough 6-1 loss to the Penguins Friday making it their fourth consecutive loss. Both teams didn’t skate pregame leaving it up to their naturals talents to determine who would win.

The Hurricanes got a jump on Detroit through the first several minutes shooting eight on Jimmy Howard while they prevented any from the Red Wings going after Scott Darling. Justin Faulk thought he had his team up 1-0 but a distinct kicking motion occurred on the play negating his scoring chance to leave the game scoreless. Carolina continued their power play but couldn’t convert on it due to strong penalty killing from Detroit.

The Red Wings caught a break against their Eastern Conference opponents but it was a long road with seven minutes left in the period to come up with a strong response. They got two shots and hunted down a chance to make the period mean something. It happened with a view from Danny DeKeyser who saw his side of his ice open launching a shot to Darling’s left giving the defenseman his fifth of the season.

“X (Ouelett) and I switched there at the blue line to confused their wingers a little bit, opened up some room and Larkin made a great play to find me and luckily it went in,” DeKeyser said to Fox Sports Detroit reporter Trevor Thompson. Detroit had only four shots with four minutes to go but the goal helped them out to push their offense for more.

A bouncer nearly gave Detroit a second but Darling threw himself around the area where the net was to hold off the lead from increasing. Two minutes were left in the game and the Red Wings slowly crawled their way back to gain three more to be outshot 10-7 through twenty. They also had the Red Wings beat at the faceoff dot that needed serious improvements going into the second.

Detroit got caught for a penalty putting the Hurricanes on the power play a second time but they failed to even the game on the advantage. Despite having troubles on special teams, they picked up where they left off at the beginning of the game to lead the Red Wings on shots in the period. While it was only 6-4 through ten minutes of play, they had a lot of close opportunities with one that Howard stopped right on the post.

While he had the lower part of the net covered, the Hurricanes beat him on a high cornered shot from Noah Hanifin for his eighth. Detroit had a chance to get back control of the score on their first man advantage and scored halfway in with Zetterberg scoring on a redirect that gave him for Gustav Nyquist’s drive and his ninth of the season. The team leader got his 100^th career power play goal as a Red Wing and put him fifth on the all-time Red Wings with 335 goals. “It’s an hour to be tied with Mr. Lindsay,” he said after the game. “To be honest, I’d be pretty happy just staying there on the record books with him.”

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The Red Wings couldn’t yet celebrate as there were five minutes left in the period with Carolina back on the power play. It was negated with 30 seconds to go giving Detroit another shot at increasing their top line. A hi stick to Frans Nielsen gave Detroit a third power play that resulted in a 3-1 lead on Trevor Daley’s shot inside the right post for his sixth. When the period came to a close, it was the Red Wings who outshot the Hurricanes 10-7 with a lead they hoped to keep together through the remainder of regulation.

Detroit played a lot more defense in the period carrying the notion of their two-goal lead and their mission to hold it. Through the first six minutes, they only had four shots on goal and got another power play that didn’t go right for them on their third try. Despite the missed opportunity, they killed off time while Howard had his eyes on the puck stopping anything that came to him.

It was 6-5 on shots on goal with Detroit’s effort taking care of 14 minutes of play and more as they inched closer to what was looking like a victory. With 1:51 left, Carolina pulled Darling from the net with a two-goal margin still holding but six men playing offense for them. It fell apart as they took one final penalty that brought Darling back in to secure their victory and end the slide at home. As the team celebrated the win, the squad of 25 saluted the crowd before skating off the ice.

Howard ended his own three game losing streak making 28 saves for a .966 save percentage. With the monkey off his and the Red Wings backs, they’ll try to make something big happen when they go on back to back games facing the New York Rangers on the road.

Svitolina wins Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship for second time beating Kasatkina in straight sets

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Elina Svitolina pulled off what only two others have done at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship Saturday night. The world number four defended her title against Daria Kasatkina of Russia winning 6-4, 6-0 on Centre Court at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium. She joined Venus Williams and Justine Henin as players who won again as defending champions.

This was the second title defense for the world number four and the first of this magnitude since winning Dubai for the first time last season. The 23 year old Ukrainian took care of former world number one Angelique Kerber in straight sets Friday to make it back to the final. While she did not find herself playing the same athlete, she had met the Russian twice before winning in a tight finish. The 20 year old who won the Volvo Car Open on the clay courts of South Carolina would try to add a hard court premier title and avoid handing Svitolina her second of the season.

The Russian opened a strong service against the Ukrainian making it difficult on her opponent’s service. The number one seed forced to deuce to hold serve and win on the first break chance. She continued to match Kasatkina putting together a much stronger serve that brought together a higher degree of strength. Svitolina delivered the first break of the set landing a net front shot that the Russian barely missed returning. The break point was put down for the 3-2 lead before she consolidated with another hold of serve.

Kasatkina came back to get another but the world number four had her serve under control leading 5-3 with the break in reach. She got too eager on a second set point attempt that led the Russian to deuce with Svitolina. They played a couple of breaks before the 20 years old fought deep to hold serve and get within a game to send the set forward in extra frames. With the serve back in hand, Svitolina dictated the tenth to prevent the set from getting out to hand, closing it down in 43 minutes. While she had an 81 percent serve from the first, putting together 19 errors and unable to secure break points was her downfall to being a set down and Svitolina halfway from a successful title defense.

During the set break, Kasatkina had a chat with her brother and coach who told her to play the next set on her own terms as she could over power the bigger play if she put her heart into winning. She had a run going but lost control allowing Svitolina to force deuce and take the opening break of the set. She conducted a hold to go with it creating her first gap on the young Russian.

It got bigger as the unforced errors were getting out of hand for Kasatkina as she dropped another one to go down 3-0 with no end in sight. Svitolina had her serve still on lock putting together good placed shots on the forehand that gave her a runaway chance for the title. She raced to a 5-0 run breaking the 20 year old with a triple break point that pushed her to falter. The match was in her hands serving in the sixth for the bagel while many fans did not want to see Kasatkina end the night this way.

The world number 24 battled against the Ukrainian’s serve but her forehand was still weak making it Svitolina’s to serve on match point. On a third shot in the rally, the 23-year-old smashed a winner far from Kasatkina’s reach to end the 70-minute match. “It’s amazing come back to play as defending champion then was amazing,” Svitolina said during her on court interview. “I want to congratulate Daria for her performance here and were gonna see more of her winning here.”

She finished with a 71 first serve percentage with 18 winners and two aces in the competition. “I was just trying to hit the ball into the court and make a rally and in the end, I was very happy I handled the pressure throughout the week and I’m very pleased.”

Pyeongchang Olympics: Sweden wins first event gold in men's relay

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Sweden completed something they have never been able to do in the men’s 4x7km biathlon Friday night at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. A huge ending to the shooting range at the Alpensia Biathlon Centre gave them the gold medal by a huge margin over Norway who took silver and Germany winning bronze despite missing so many as a team.

The final race of the event had the Russians unable to defend their title having no one qualified to help them repeat despite the circumstances. Half the teams from Germany and Austria was back to try their best in the four-leg race consisting of three circuits spanning 2.5 kilometers before two shooting stops.

Norway, France and Sweden got the race started being on the front row with Germany, Italy and Switzerland right behind them to compete up the first hill. Canada surprisingly took the lead ahead of France with Norway and Germany rounding out the top four before coming into the range. With the weather a little steady, the biathletes came into the range with good focus that led to Germany’s Erik Lesser to finish first with Canada right behind them. Norway and France took a penalty or two but it was the Norwegians who came back to get into fourth just under five seconds back.

Germany got back to the lead with Slovakia finishing clean along with Ukraine who skied into the third lap in second and fourth with Norway in between them. France fell away back along with Italy while Sweden managed to stay in the top five. They came to the exchange 19 seconds ahead of Slovakia to get a shot at widening the gap further with Benedikt Doll taking the leg.

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He came to the first round of shooting clean but then faltered in the second missing three times losing all their time ahead. They watched as the Czech Republic took over with Austria and Sweden running first, second and third. The three came to the halfway point to make the tag with Germany 15 seconds behind the leaders. Martin Fourcade was on the course hoping to get a lot of time made up with his skills at the shooting range.

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He could not on the first one as he missed one while the Czech Republic missed one as well but got into first with Norway going perfect and Austria in third. The Norwegians led them back into the sixth shoot where they did well missing none with Sweden on their tail. Germany was nearly 14 seconds back with the final exchange coming into play.

Norway and Sweden led the way and stayed that way coming into the seventh shoot where accuracy was impertinent to finish perfectly. They both went five for five with the gap between them less than two seconds. Germany missed three times that put them back over a minute in third. The last shoot was the turning of the tide as the two Scandinavians returned to see Sweden miss once while Emil Hegle Svendsen of Norway missed too many. He took his country out of running for gold with Germany a mess once again missing twice.

While they still managed to come out in third, they were down two minutes on the lead looking solid to finish the race with a bronze medal. The race for Sweden was a victory lap for them as they skied quick to stay well ahead of Norway to cross the finish line in 1:15:16.5 with Norway 55 seconds back and Germany in two minutes and seven seconds later.