It was a spectacular Sunday for Detroit sports.
While the Detroit Lions were winning their first NFL playoff game in 32 years back home, the Detroit Red Wings pulled out what goaltender James Reimer called a “special” win of their own in Toronto against the Maple Leafs.
The scheduled 7 p.m. ET start was pushed back to 7:52 p.m. as the Red Wings did not arrive at Scotiabank Arena until after 6 p.m. because of travel woes.
The problems started Saturday after the Red Wings’ win at home against the Los Angeles Kings. The team headed to the airport to board their flight, only to see it have to turn around and land in Detroit because of mechanical issues.
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The Red Wings then had to get a new plane and couldn’t take off until late Sunday afternoon. Despite all that, the Red Wings erased two one-goal deficits and won 4-2.
“It truly is a blessing we get to play a sport for a living and every once in a while there’s a special night and tonight is one of those nights,” said Reimer, a former Maple Leafs goaltender. “A ton of adversity, backs against the wall, schedule’s all messed up, flying in late all that. Those are games where you can cave or you can dig in. I thought as a group, to a man, we dug in.”
Andrew Copp broke a 2-2 tie with 1:40 left before Lucas Raymond sealed it with an empty-netter.
The little-used Reimer made 28 saves in his first start of 2024.
“Add it to the 24 hours of craziness, a guy who hasn’t really played that much,” Copp told Bally Sports Detroit. “To come in and do that is awesome. That’s one of the biggest team wins in the regular season I’ve ever been a part of.”
The Red Wings also had to play a forward short for most of the game as Patrick Kane exited early in the first period with a lower-body injury.
Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin said the team felt good with the deficit at just 2-1 entering the third period.
“We could have had every excuse today,” Larkin told Sportsnet’s Shawn McKenzie. “We showed up, we battled, we lost Kaner early. That hurts when you lose a player like that. But we just kept fighting and scored big goals.”
“… It was one of the biggest wins of my career, just with the circumstances and how we played and what was at stake.”
The Red Wings (22-16-5) are tied with the Tampa Bay Lightning for the wild-card lead in the Eastern Conference. They also now sit just one point behind the Leafs for third in the Atlantic Division, though Toronto has two games in hand.
