Trending: Red Wings succumb to streaking Penguins, 5-2

PITTSBURGH - The Detroit Red Wings had a nice start but couldn't sustain it against a hot team.
The Wings had a 1-0 lead after the first but the Pittsburgh Penguins dominated the special teams battle, beating the Wings, 5-2, at PPG Paints Arena on Thursday night.

Dylan Larkin and Andreas Athanasiou, Detroit's leading goal scorers, tallied for the Wings.

Phil Kessel (two, both on power play), Derick Brassard (two, one empty net) and Patric Hornqvist scored for the Penguins. In 25 career games against the Wings, Kessel now has 13 goals and 15 assists.
Detroit goaltender Jimmy Howard made 35 saves while Pittsburgh netminder Matt Murray made 27, 13 in the first period. It was Murray's first career victory against Detroit in four games.
The Wings fell to 15-18-6 while the Penguins improved to 19-12-6. The Penguins have won four games in a row and six of their last seven.
Up next for the Wings is a Saturday night date in Dallas against the Stars. The Penguins begin a three-game road trip Saturday in St. Louis.

1. Dylan Larkin:Clearly the three-day break did not affect Larkin at all. In the first period alone, Larkin had four shots. At 11:49, his shot from the right circle beat Murray top shelf. Gustav Nyquist and Justin Abdelkader assisted. It was Larkin's 16th goal of the season, tying his goal total in 82 games last season. It also extended Larkin's point streak to 12 games. Larkin has six goals and nine assists in that span. Larkin finished with 26 shifts for 21:07, had a team-high five shots, two hits, two giveaways, two takeaways, one blocked shot, won 13-of-25 face-offs and was minus-1.
   Quotable:"Disappointing finish. This one hurts a little more after the start we had. After the first, we just let them come in and we stopped forechecking, we stopped our O-zone grind that was so good in the first period. We did hit posts and we had some chances, but that's nit good enough in this league. We got to find a way to just grind it out for 60 minutes, play our game and come away with two points. We need two points desperately here." - Larkin
   Quotable II: "I don't know that you're going to sustain that against anybody for 60 minutes. They're a good team. You want to score on your chances. That's one thing we got to make sure when we have starts like that you'd like to walk out with a bigger lead than that. You got to make sure you find ways to kill those critical penalties. They didn't have a chance until Kessel scored that goal. They had nothing going even in the second there. They're a momentum team and obviously once they start feeling it, in anybody's building but also their team. We got to make sure we do a better job of finding ways to grab that momentum back." - Wings coach Jeff Blashill

2. Andreas Athanasiou:The Wings were already having a tough time generating offense without Anthony Mantha and Mike Green in the lineup, then had to manage without Athanasiou the last two games because of an upper-body injury. Athanasiou was able to rest and rehabilitate his injury during the three-day break and returned to action in Pittsburgh. At 4:45 of the third period, Athanasiou got free on one of his patented breakaways, beating Murray through the five-hole and cutting Pittsburgh's lead to 3-2 at the time. Athanasiou finished with 23 shifts for 17:46, had three shots, one giveaway, one blocked shot, was 0-for-1 in face-offs and was even.
   Quotable:"It felt good. Once I made the decision that I was going to play, obviously I knew that my body felt ready to go. Obviously when you're down anything helps. I was happy to get that one on the board and hopefully try to get the boys to push back. Unfortunately it wasn't the outcome we wanted." - Athanasiou
   Quotable II:"It gave us life. It was a great read by him. He just put the burners on and great play. It wasn't very much later that they got it back. It's tough but we've got to find a way to get two points." - Howard
   Quotable III:"That was a great play by Doubles. It was a huge shift there. We can't wait for a goal to have that momentum. We need a good shift, big hit, big save to get us back to our game after they went up 2-1. We waited almost a full period and a half until we felt that momentum switch." - Larkin

3. Special teams: The Wings came into the game ranked 20th on both the power play and penalty kill. Both stayed true to form. Early in the first period, Juuso Riikola was called for hooking. The Wings had several chances but only one shot on net. Filip Hronek hit the post during the man-advantage, In the second period, the Wings made the mistake of putting the Penguins on the power play. First, Hronek was called for holding the stick. Kessel skated around Jonathan Ericsson and beat Howard through the five-hole at 7:12. Trevor Daley was called for tripping and Kessel struck again, this time from the mid-slot at 18:58 of the second. The Penguins finished 2-for-3 on the power play. The Wings only had one power-play chance and did not capitalize.
   Quotable:"I think we've been making it too easy. We need to stick to what we do and do it well. It's one of the best power plays in the league and they got some weapons in there. But we got some great penalty killers, we have a great goalie, we have great defensemen, so we got to stick together and we got to manage the puck like I should have on the Kessel goal in the second period. Just play a little smarter and stick up for each other." - Larkin
   Quotable II:"It's obviously not fun when those things happen but we had a lot of chances tonight. We hit some posts, we hit some crossbars. If those pucks go in it's a completely different game. If we just stay out of the box and kind of not let their power play get going and let their big guns get into the game and keep making it tough for them, it would be a lot different right now. Things happen. We gotta learn from it and we got another game coming up in a couple of days that we have to be ready for." - Athanasiou
   Quotable III:"You can't give up the number of goals we've given up and be happy with it. We got to make sure we cut down on the number of goals against. We're playing some high-powered offensive teams. It's hard to eliminate all their offense but you got to make sure you're not giving up anything easy. You got to make sure they're earning everything. You certainly can't give up as many goals as we've given up and have a chance to win." - Blashill