NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The Detroit Red Wings got their season off to a winning start.
Tyler Bertuzzi scored twice and had two assists to lead the Red Wings to a 5-3 victory over the Nashville Predators on Saturday night.
Anthony Mantha added a goal and two assists for Detroit in its opener. Dylan Larkin had a goal and an assist and Luke Glendening also scored.
Viktor Arvidsson, Filip Forsberg and Mattias Ekholm scored for Nashville, which is 1-1.
Midway through the third with the game tied, Glendening scored the go-ahead goal with a wrist shot from the right circle that glanced off the mask of Nashville goaltender Juuse Saros and into the net.
“He’s worked extremely hard at becoming a better goal scorer,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said of Glendening. “He’s worked hard on his shot over the course of the last number of summers, and the goal that he scored on the 2-on-1, that’s indicative of the work that he’s put in.”
Bertuzzi scored the game’s first goal at 10:29 of the opening period.
From above the left faceoff dot, Larkin sent a cross-ice pass through the slot to Bertuzzi at the right faceoff dot, where he beat Saros with a one-timer high to the glove side.
Saros finished with 23 saves.
Just 1:11 later, Mantha made it 2-0. From inside the Detroit blue line, Mantha carried the puck up ice into the Nashville zone. He fanned on his initial attempt, but then connected on a backhand shot as he was falling to the ice and beat Saros between the pads.
“Playing with the lead and playing from ahead is where you want to be and we never got there tonight,” Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said.
Arvidsson cut the Detroit lead in half at 4:40 of the second.
Matt Duchene had the puck below the goal line just to the right of the Detroit net. There, he made a blind backhand pass to Arvidsson in the low slot, where he beat Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard low to the stick side with a wrist shot. Howard made 39 saves.
“I don’t think anyone liked waiting around a full week to get going,” Howard said. “It was nice to get out there and finally play some meaningful hockey.”
Arvidsson has a goal in each of Nashville’s two games this season. He set a Nashville franchise record last season with 34 goals.
An unchecked Forsberg skated from the left half boards to the left circle, where he beat Howard with a wrist shot on the short side.
Detroit briefly took a 3-2 lead at 4:02 of the third on Larkin’s first of the season, but Ekholm responded 46 seconds later to tie the game at 3.
“(Detroit) had some excitement and some jump, and we couldn’t really match it in the first,” Ekholm said. “That can’t happen in our barn on a Saturday night. We could have played better tonight but overall, I think they might have deserved this one.”
Bertuzzi added an empty-net goal to cement the victory for Detroit.
“What we build off the end of last season was being mature late in games, one-goal leads,” Larkin said. “We didn’t back down, we didn’t fold, 10 minutes to go we got a 1-goal lead and we locked it up.”
NOTES: Detroit has beaten Nashville in 10 of 11 games since Peter Laviolette has been the Predators coach. … Duchene has five assists in his first two games as a Predator. … Chris Kirkpatrick and Joey Fatone of the band NSYNC attended the game.
UP NEXT:
Red Wings: Host Dallas Stars on Sunday.
Predators: Host San Jose Sharks on Tuesday.
___
More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/tag/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Please read our comment policy before commenting.