RALEIGH-- The Red Wings are shooting more and getting results.
After 44 shots in a 2-1 shootout victory over the San Jose Sharks Wednesday in Detroit, the Wings had 38 shots in a 4-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes at Raleigh's PNC Arena Friday night.
Trending: Helm has three-point night in victory over Hurricanes
Wings get two more goals from defensemen as DeKeyser and Daley score
© Toby Murray/Detroit Red Wings
By
Dana Wakiji @Dwakiji / DetroitRedWings.com
The Red Wings improved to 21-21-8 overall and 10-11-1 on the road while the Hurricanes fell to 24-20-8 overall and 12-8-4 at home.
Danny DeKeyser, Trevor Daley, Gustav Nyquist and Darren Helm scored for Detroit while Sebastian Aho scored for Carolina.
Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg played in his 1,050th career game.
1. Darren Helm: Helm was playing in his second game since returning from a lower-body injury. After assisting on the Wings' first two goals, Helm got to score one of his own. Helm was in the box for tripping, a penalty his teammates killed, then he jumped out of the box and went on the breakaway, scoring his fifth goal of the season at 13:48. It was Helm's first goal since Dec. 5 against the Winnipeg Jets, snapping a 15-game drought. It is Helm's third career three-point game. Helm finished with 20 shifts for 15:30, 1:05 shorthanded, had four shots, two takeaways, one blocked shot and was plus-3.
Quotable: "Just the puck and the open space and their guys, every one of them behind. I just wanted to get a good, hard shot off at the net. I kind of had that planned before I got the puck and I just let one rip. I think I make that move because I've struggled putting the puck in the net by making moves. I dumbed it down a little bit and it worked out." - Helm
Quotable II: ""I thought he was like everybody else. I thought he competed his tail off. I think Helmer competes every single night. I think Helmer has been a real consistent guy for us all season. I think his competition level separates him in the league, so I thought he was really good." - Wings coach Jeff Blashill
2. Trevor Daley: Blashill said after the morning skate that one area where the Wings can get more shots is from their defense corps. Daley took that to heart last game, backhanding a shot that beat San Jose Sharks goaltender Martin Jones. That was one a little bit lucky but there was no luck involved at 5:06 of the second period. Helm found Daley in the slot and Daley ripped a shot into the top right corner over the glove of Carolina goaltender Scott Darling, who was making his first career start against the Wings. Daley pumped his first in celebration, a celebration worthy of Tomas Tatar. It marked Daley's fifth goal of the season in 45 games. He had five goals in 56 games with the Pittsburgh Penguins last season.
Quotable: "That's big, too. That's one thing that we want to be better at, get the D involved more. But it helps when we get out of our end quicker. That's when the D can join us. If we spend 30 seconds or more in our own end, it's harder for the D to have energy to join the rush." - Zetterberg
Quotable II: "Two areas I thought were easy ways to create more offense - one was shooting the puck and the other was the D-men getting involved more in the offense. We haven't produced enough points from our back end and I think we have the ability to. To have that start to show is a big thing for us. If we can get them to continue to produce and continue to be active off the rush and continue to be active in the O-zone, continue to shoot pucks, that's our best chance to create more offense." - Blashill
3. Danny DeKeyser: DeKeyser is most definitely not an offensive defenseman but that does not mean he is exempt from the shot-first mandate. So DeKeyser did what he was supposed to do, shooting the puck after Helm passed it to him from behind the net. DeKeyser's shot eluded Darling at 16:21 of the first and tied the game at 1. It was DeKeyser's second goal of the season and first since Dec. 15 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Quotable: "I definitely feel better on the ice the last few weeks. I think I've been playing a little bit better as well. The ankle injury kind of sets you back a bit. I would definitely say I'm feeling pretty good right now." - DeKeyser
Quotable II: "We saw tonight what they can do, what the team can do when we get a couple of goals from them. It's game by committee with our team. I don't know if we have a guy that's going to go and score two or three goals a night or get two or three points a night. We gotta do it by committee. Everyone's gotta chip in every night and find ways to win." - Helm
4. Petr Mrazek: Mrazek, making his fourth start in the last five games, appears to be on top of his game at the moment and is seizing his moment. At 8:16 of the first period, Hurricanes leading scorer Sebastian Aho batted the puck out of mid-air past Mrazek for a Hurricanes power-play goal and a 1-0 lead. Other than that, Mrazek had no trouble. He stopped Joakim Nordstrom on a shorthanded breakaway at 17:27 of the first, prevented Jaccob Slavin's redirection from going into the net at 13:19 of the second.
Quotable: "First one I didn't see the puck coming. I knew it was going to be a one-timer. Just tried to put my glove up. Too bad it went off the glove, in. I tried to stay big net and lots of traffic in front or me, so I tried to be out of the blue paint a little bit and a couple of lucky bounces there that I didn't see the puck and it hit my pad." - Mrazek