Detroit Red Wings proved that they were a strong contender in the NHL, holding off Pittsburg Penguins for a 6-3 win at Little Caesars Arena on Wednesday.
“This kind of start makes everything easier, and a lot of that is because of my linemates and teammates,” DeBrincat said. “We have so many scoring options that it is hard for anyone to cover all of them.”
DeBrincat has eight points (five goals, three assists) in his first four games with Detroit since being acquired in a trade with the Ottawa Senators on July 9.
“It is only four games, but I think this has been a good stretch coming off a very good camp,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said.
“We haven’t been perfect, we had some mistakes tonight that led to some easy offense, but we’ve played four good games against tough opponents.”
Erik Karlsson had a goal and two assists, and Tristan Jarry made 23 saves for Pittsburgh (2-2-0).
“Detroit’s a good team, and we just lost ourselves for six or seven minutes in the second period,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “They scored a couple of goals, but we fought back into the game.”
The Penguins took the lead through Evgeni Malkin only 53 seconds into the first period.
DeBrincat leveled the game 12 minutes in, tapping in a pass from Austin Czarnik.
Detroit took the lead in the second period through Ben Chiarot, beating Jarry’s glove side through a screen from the left circle.
Copp scored the third fo the Red Wings.
David Perron sent in a strong rebound at 17:49 to extend Detriot’s lead to 4-1.
Karlsson made it 4-2 at 3:37 of the third period, scoring glove side from the top of the left circle.
“I liked our start in the third period, we could have easily extended the lead with a fifth goal, but we had a couple of plays where we tracked back into our zone and didn’t get coverages sorted out,” Lalonde said. “They got two goals through traffic, and that put us back on our heels.”
