DETROIT — “I’ll wait,” Derek Stepan said Wednesday night in the visiting dressing room at Joe Louis Arena, “because I know everyone is going to ask.”
The Rangers’ level-headed top-line center was about as hot as he gets just minutes earlier, when he was sent to the penalty box for a holding call that was artfully drawn by the Red Wings Gustav Nyquist. The penalty carried over from regulation into overtime, and eventually resulted in a scrambling goal scored by former Devil Marek Zidlicky, giving the Wings a 2-1 win in game that resembled a high-level postseason contest.
“I’m not going to comment on it,” Stepan said. “It’s really just going to get me in trouble, so I’m just going to leave it at that. We put a really good effort on the ice tonight, and we came up short.
“And I’m going to leave it at that,” the alternate captain continued, “because nothing good comes of it.”
Good, instead, can come to the Rangers (39-17-7) by way of analyzing their game, which was just as Stepan described it — terrific. With the point, they also retook first place in the Metropolitan Division, tying the rival Islanders in points while the Blueshirts still hold two games in hand.
The Rangers also would have walked away with two points in regulation if it wasn’t for Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard, who finished with 39 saves and was terrific throughout.
“The story for me was just not burying the chances,” said Dan Boyle, who was rather good yet again, but who was on for quite a bit of the fruitless power play late in the third, the game tied, 1-1. “We had a lot of grade-A looks, and unfortunately, we couldn’t find the back of the net.
“But I think overall, it’s a pretty strong road game against a great team.”
There is no disputing the Red Wings (36-15-11) are a great team, and they showed it with speed and skill and smarts. They were staked to a 1-0 lead when the superlative captain Henrik Zetterberg forced a Ryan McDonagh turnover, and then eventually made an all-world backhand pass to Justin Abdelkater, who tapped it in, 6:12 into the first.
Yet the Blueshirts matched, getting a power-play goal from Dan Girardi later in the first, when he dove to knock in a loose puck in front.
“It was a good hockey game,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “I really liked how we played.”
The second period was a flurry of chances for both teams, but the final 40 minutes of regulation remained scoreless.
And that brought Stepan’s penalty, and the eventual game-winner.
“Ideally, you don’t want to take a penalty like that at the end of the game, but we’ve had good [penalty] kills in the past,” McDonagh said. “We have to finish it off.”
During the chaos in front, McDonagh tried to fire the puck out of the zone, but it appeared to hit Zidlicky’s skate and then bound up and over the head of goalie Cam Talbot.
“I don’t even know how it ended up in the net,” McDonagh said. “It’s unfortunate, for sure.”
Even Talbot was outstanding, making 29 saves in his 14th start in the past 15 games, taking the reins rather admirably since starter Henrik Lundqvist went down with the vascular injury in his neck in early February. Talbot made a jaw-dropping glove save on Niklas Kronwall in the regulation part of Stepan’s penalty kill, essentially getting the Rangers that much-appreciated — and much-deserved — point.
“Our group is very confident whether Hank is in goal or Cam’s in goal,” said Vigneault, whose team is now 10-2-3 in Lundqvist’s absence. “They play hard in front of both goaltenders. Every time we take the ice, we take it one game at a time, and we expect to win.”