Justin Abdelkader scored the third Wings goal with 43.5 seconds left in overtime to complete a late comeback in a 4-3 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Joe Louis Arena. Detroit trailed 3-1 with less than three minutes remaining and scored twice with an extra attacker. Niklas Kronwall had two goals and an assist for Detroit, which scored one goal in each of its prior two games. Jimmy Howard stopped 23 shots. Pascal Dupuis, Olli Maatta and Chris Kunitz scored for Pittsburgh, which lost 5-3 to the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday. Blake Comeau had two assists, and Thomas Greiss made 27 saves in his first game of the season. Abdelkader scored from the slot in overtime after Zetterberg deflected a Penguins pass attempt. Zetterberg scored with 2:39 to go in the third period, and Kronwall tied it with his second goal with 39 seconds remaining. Kunitz gave the Penguins a 3-1 lead 8:29 into the second period when he beat Howard with a wrist shot from the top of the left circle. Greiss stopped Abdelkader's shot from the point during a Red Wings power play 4:09 into the second. Abdelkader was then hit in the nose by Zetterberg's wide wrist shot late in the period. Dupuis opened the scoring 5:12 into the game when he converted a 2-on-1 rush with a wrist shot from the bottom of the left circle. The rush started after Red Wings defenseman Jakub Kindl couldn't handle a back pass from Pavel Datsyuk in the high slot. Maatta made it 2-0 with 8:06 left in the first period. He walked out of the left corner and his backhand shot trickled through Howard for his first goal of the season. Kronwall scored with 5:00 remaining in the first period. He beat Greiss with a wrist shot from the high slot after making a nice move around Penguins forward Patric Hornqvist. Datsyuk, in his second game since returning from a separated shoulder, was on the ice for both Penguins goals for a minus-2 in the first period. A check by Pittsburgh defenseman Rob Scuderi in the first preseason game was what injured Datsyuk.
With three points, Zetterberg passed Ted Lindsay for eight place in points in Red Wings history (730). 0:57 into the third period saw a fight between Abdelkader and Chris Kunitz, while Crosby was called for interference on Zetterberg.
Pens Quotes
Sidney Crosby: "Just finding a way. You have to expect, when a team's down, they're going to be desperate and you have to be more desperate, especially with the talent and skill that they have."
Mike Johnston: "The final seven-eight minutes of the game, especially up 3-1, we've got to learn to play better and be more comfortable playing with the lead."
Wings Quotes
Henrik Zetterberg: "We thought we had something going in the third, thought we had to keep going and put the puck in their end and hopefully we'll create some offense. We got two late goals and it was good."Justin Abdelkader: "It was the last three minutes to get a couple goals. We don't want to put ourselves in that situation because the chances of that happening are pretty slim. I thought we worked hard, battled back, we had a lot of chances in the game, but we found a way there at the end to push it to overtime and got a win. That was a huge two points. I was towards the end of my shift there. Puck kind of squirted loose… I just kind of jumped in front of my guy, I don't think he saw me coming there from behind him. I wanted to get a shot off quick there. Got it up and just off the post and in."
Mike Babcock: "It was a huge comeback for us. Obviously we weren't as good as we wanted to be. We can skate and we're a hardworking group and we didn't skate and we didn't work hard in the first period and we dug ourselves a hole. We then spent a lot trying to claw our way back. Gotta give the guys a ton of credit, they stuck with it and [Howard] gave us a chance and in the end we were able to get it done."
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