Wings try to build momentum vs. Hurricanes
DETROIT -- The Detroit Red Wings are coming off their first win of the season, while the Carolina Hurricanes have lost three straight.
Detroit hosts Carolina on Monday night at Little Caesars Arena.
The Red Wings (1-5-2) finally got into the "W" column with a 4-3 overtime victory over the Florida Panthers on Saturday night at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla. Right winger Gustav Nyquist got the winner 3:44 into the extra period on a breakaway for his first goal of the season.
"It felt good to score there, for sure," Nyquist said after the game. "To get that first one out of the way, hopefully we can build off this one."
It is the first time since 1985-86 (0-8-1) that Detroit failed to win in its first seven games.
"The Red Wings a week ago would have drooped on the bench and the energy on the bench would have been terrible," center Dylan Larkin said. "But it wasn't like that. We battled."
The Hurricanes (4-3-1) fell 3-1 to the Colorado Avalanche in Raleigh on Saturday night.
"You don't want to let things snowball and go the wrong way," Hurricanes right winger Justin Williams said after the loss. "The trick is to not let it become bigger than it is. Nip it. As long as we approach it that way, we'll be fine."
Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour said his team is playing better than recent results would indicate.
"You just don't want the losses to bleed and make it feel like, 'Oh, my God, we're not playing that well.' Really, in my opinion, we're playing pretty well," he said. "We're getting good efforts out of most of our guys, and a bounce here or there and we're talking about a whole different situation."
Carolina right winger Sebastian Aho is tied for fifth in the NHL with 13 points (four goals and nine assists) and had an assist against Colorado to extend his season-opening point streak to eight games, tying Victor Rask's run in 2016-17 for the longest in Hurricanes history.
Aho also has 26 goals and 51 assists for 77 points in his last 52 regular-season games, a pace that would give him 121 points over a full 82-game regular season.
Larkin and Nyquist, who each had a goal and an assist Saturday night, are tied for the Detroit team lead in points with seven each. Larkin has four goals and three assists and Nyquist a goal and six assists.
Rookie defenseman Dennis Cholowski also had a goal and an assist in the win. He has been impressive, playing on the Red Wings top defensive pair with two goals and five points and minus-4 in six games, while averaging 21:48 of ice time.
He is one of five rookies on Detroit's roster. The others are defensemen Joe Hicketts and Filip Hronek, and forwards Michael Rasmussen and Cristoffer Ehn.
Rasmussen appeared to score his first NHL goal in the first period Saturday night on a tip in, but it was called back because it was ruled that the Red Wings interfered with Panthers goalie Michael Hutchinson.
