Oilers 6, Red Wings 5 (SO)

Wings lose shootout, lose Valtteri Filppula to injury

Chris McCosky / The Detroit News

Edmonton, Alberta -- They got away with spotting the Canucks a 2-0 lead in Vancouver Tuesday, but spotting the Edmonton Oilers two four-goal leads?

Why not?

Playing a miserable game and on the verge of getting run out of Rexall Place, the Wings got goals from Darren Helm (his first NHL regular season goal) and Henrik Zetterberg late in the second. Then, still down 5-2, they scored three goals in a span of 6:21 in the third to steal an overtime point. But the Oilers salvaged a 6-5 win with Patrick O'Sullivan's goal in the shootout.

The Wings' Jason Williams, Pavel Datsyuk and Zetterberg were all denied by Nikolai Khabibulin in the shootout. But to get the game to overtime was a minor miracle.

"We took over the game totally (in the third period), but what are you doing?" coach Mike Babcock said of his team's ugly play early. "What am I doing as a coach? That part is really disturbing."

More disturbing was the news center Valtteri Filppula broke his right wrist in the second period and will be out six to eight weeks.

"Obviously, I feel terrible," said Filppula, who recently was moved up to the second line. "But there's nothing I can do about it now."

The injury occurred on a hard, clean check by Gilbert Brule.

"It's a big blow, obviously," Babcock said. "We're going to have to buckle down as a team. It doesn't matter who's not here. It's about who is here. We are going to miss Fil. You don't replace good players like that. But we have to find a way to win games."

Jonathan Ericsson and Todd Bertuzzi scored 75 seconds apart in the first eight minutes of the third. Then Patrick Eaves scored his first goal as a Red Wing, finishing a rush by Helm and Kris Draper to tie the score with 7:07 left.

The Wings outshot the Oilers 21-6 in the third and kept the Oilers on their heels the rest of regulation but couldn't get No. 6 by Khabibulin.

The Wings were absolutely pummeled for two periods by an aggressive Oilers team missing five key players with injuries and two others with the flu.

The Oilers had lost three straight and hadn't scored a goal in 141 minutes and 25 seconds. They hadn't scored an even-strength goal in 10 periods. Yet it took them just 42 seconds to end both of those scoring droughts.

J.F. Jacques picked up a rebound from a shot by Gilbert Brule and got two whacks at it before he put it past Jimmy Howard.

Eight-and-a-half minutes later, Dustin Penner batted in a rebound off a shot by Shawn Horcoff.

Three minutes later, with Bertuzzi in the penalty box, Ales Hemsky blasted a shot from the left circle past Howard.

Three goals allowed in 12:24.

It was 4-0 58 seconds into the second period, thanks to Hemsky's second goal, a breakaway he stuck between Howard's pads.

All four of those goals were a product of sloppy play by the Wings in their own end or in the neutral zone.

A turnover by Filppula led to the first goal. Zetterberg failed to clear the puck on the second goal. And Bertuzzi took his penalty after he coughed up the puck in the neutral zone, having to hook his man to prevent an odd-man rush.

On the fourth, Bertuzzi threw a bad pass off Brian Rafalski's skate outside the Oilers' zone. Hemsky picked it up and went in on Howard.

"We are being very stubborn, trying to make that (pass out of the zone) when it's not there," captain Nick Lidstrom said. "The teams we are playing against backcheck so hard, they take everything away in the middle. So trying to go across ice or through the middle is very hard and we are too stubborn trying to make that pass."

Rafalski was a minus-three on the night and Ericsson had three giveaways. But credit the Oilers, too, for a ferocious forecheck early. Penner took Rafalski out of the play on the first two goals. He knocked him down behind the net on the first, then beat him to the puck to get his deflection on the second.

The fifth goal was a product of the Oilers' superior physicality as well. On a power play, the Oilers crashed to the net and refused to be cleared out. Neither Niklas Kronwall nor Lidstrom could move any bodies out and Shawn Horcoff eventually poked it in.

"We just decided that we can't play like that," Lidstrom said. "It's not going to work in the long run and it sure didn't work in the first two periods. You just put yourself in a bad position where you are behind all the time and scrambling all game. It takes a lot out of you.

"We have to really bear down now defensively, especially now with Fil out of the lineup."

The Wings are 1-1-2 on this trip, 4-4-3 on the season.

Ice chips

Zetterberg's goal, which he banged in off defenseman Taylor Chorney , was just his third in 17 regular season games.

... Babcock didn't commit to anything after the game, but Helm might get the first chance to replace Filppula on the second line, with Danny Cleary and Bertuzzi.

"Losing Fil, such an important part of our team is tough," Lidstrom said. "But somebody else will get an opportunity and I thought Helm played real well tonight. He was skating hard and he had a goal and an assist."