Vancouver Canucks’ Matt Bartkowski (right) shoves Detroit Red Wings left wing Tomas Tatar (21) in the third period.


MCT/Detroit


The Detroit Red Wings segued from insipid to inspiring.
They hosted a beat-up Vancouver Canucks squad Friday at Joe Louis Arena but had to rally to make a game of it.
A shootout left them on the short end of a 4-3 loss. Radim Vrbata and Brad Richards traded shootout goals. It took seven rounds before Linden Very ended it
Jimmy Howard had a busy night, facing 39 shots through regulation as his teammates sleepwalked for two periods. Joakim Andersson bought himself some breathing room with his first goal of the season. Pavel Datsyuk also scored, and set up Henrik Zetterberg’s goal with 1:07 to go in regulation as the Wings overcame 2-0 and 3-2 deficits.
The Canucks came into the night reeling and ailing, having lost three straight games, the last time Thursday at Philadelphia where the pain included seeing captain Henrik Sedin leave with an injury. The Wings came in rested after last playing Monday. Of course one team dominated the other.
Only it was the Canucks who ran up a 6-0 edge in shots in four minutes, and who kept swarming Howard.
Howard made his ninth save in eight minutes when he robbed Alexandre Burrows with a quick glove. A few minutes later, Howard dove to make a stick save on Bo Horvat as he eyed a wrap-around attempt. The Wings, on the other hand, barely tested Ryan Miller. Tomas Jurco had one shot. Danny DeKeyser another. Luke Glendening tried a tipped shot.
The Canucks saw their efforts bear fruit with a minute to go in the first period, when Jared McCann sent Jannik Hansen’s rebound stick-side into Detroit’s net. They had 17 shots at period’s end, while the Wings had five, none from the team’s top threats.
The second period was worse, as neither side generated anything noteworthy. At the game’s midpoint, the Wings had seven shots on net. The Canucks had 22.
Tomas Tatar got the Wings a power play with six minutes left in the second period, but the first thing that happened was the Canucks drove the Wings into their own zone. Two minutes later, Howard had made as many saves as Miller during the power play. The Canucks doubled up at 17:08, when Sven Baertschi finished a beautiful setup by Horvat.
The Wings finally struck back at 18:53, from an unusual source. Andersson was rewarded for being in front of the net with a deflection on DeKeyser’s shot. It was big for the Wings and bigger for Andersson, who needed to make an argument for staying in the lineup.
Brendan Smith sent a beauty of a pass to Datsyuk to the right of Vancouver’s net to make it 2-2 at 3:29 of the third period, but two minutes later Vrbata was left free to pick up a rebound in the low slot and swing it around for a goal.
Finding a third goal was made harder when tempers flared in the third period, at one point seeing three Wings jammed into the penalty box.