The Sharks were hoping the Wings’ consecutive home winning streak would be in tact when they visited Joe Louis Arena Sunday afternoon. San Jose wanted to be that team to finally end Detroit’s impressive home run and continue their regular season dominance over the NHL’s best team.
Unfortunately for San Jose they were just another victim of the Joe.
The Wings won their 23rd consecutive home game Sunday beating the San Jose Sharks 3-2. Detroit whose almost been unbeatable at home (26-2-1) also broke the multiple-season home winning streak of 22 wins last set by the Boston Bruins more than eight decades ago.
Detroit set the single-season home winning streak of 20 games last Tuesday against Dallas.
Henrik Zetterberg and Drew Miller gave Detroit a two-goal lead midway through the second period and Darren Helm restored the two-goal edge 7:01 into the third.
Logan Couture scored late in the second period for the Sharks and Patrick Marleau pulled them within a goal with 4:44 left.
The Wings also won their sixth straight game sweeping the home stand and ended a five game regular season losing streak against the Sharks.
Detroit backup goaltender Joey MacDonald got the start again for the Wings making 31 saves in place of the injured Jimmy Howard.
Howard is expected to be back between the pipes Tuesday night in Chicago after suffering a broken finger back on February 2nd in a win against Vancouver.
San Jose has now lost six of their past eight games but still sit atop the Pacific Division.
San Jose’s Antti Niemi gave up a goal on the second shot he faced and finished with 25 saves.
NOTES (via TSN.ca): The NHL’s second-longest winning streak at home this season is eight, shared by Calgary and Colorado. The second-longest active streak at home is five, shared by St. Louis and Phoenix. … In the shootout’s seven-season era, the previous mark for the longest home winning streak was 14 by Boston during the 2008-09 season. … San Jose beat Detroit 5-2 in their previous meeting and won 4-2 at Joe Louis Arena on Oct. 28. . …. MacDonald shares the longest winning streak by a goalie born in Nova Scotia with Wendell Young and Pokey Reddick, who won six in a row for Pittsburgh and Winnipeg, respectively, two-plus decades ago. MacDonald won a combined six games the previous two seasons for Detroit and Toronto. … San Jose D Jason Demers played for the first time in nearly a month. … The Red Wings’ next home game is Thursday night against Vancouver.
Ref: TSN.ca, Associated Press,
