Tonight, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings played their last game of 2024. This New Year’s Eve matchup would be the Penguins and Red Wings’ third matchup of the season. The Penguins took the first game of this season’s series with a 6-3 win. Then, the Red Wings responded the next time these two teams met with a 3-2 victory in overtime.
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Going into Tuesday night’s matchup, the Penguins had split a home-and-home series with the New York Islanders in their first two games out of the holiday break. The Red Wings were also 1-1 in their first two games out of the break under new head coach Todd McLellan after the Red Wings fired Derek LaLonde.
Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Detroit Red Wings Game Recap
After struggling in their first game under McLellan against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Red Wings put forth a much better effort in their 4-2 win against the Washington Capitals. The Red Wings carried this momentum into the first period against the Penguins. In the period, the Red Wings had 14 scoring chances and held the Penguins to just four. The Red Wings also won the high-danger chance battle 7-1 in the period.
Despite dominating the first period and winning the expected goal share 1.36-0.41, the first period finished in a 1-1 tie. The Red Wings opened the scoring just shy of eight minutes into the game when Jonatan Berggren broke loose behind the Penguins’ defense to bury a breakaway goal on Alex Nedeljkovic for his fifth of the season. The Penguins responded 10 minutes later with a one-timer from Drew O’Connor, who found the back of the net.
The second period had more two-way traffic, with only 52.63% of scoring chances going to the Red Wings and 66.66% of the high-danger chances going to the Penguins. However, the only goal of the period was on a Red Wings power play by Patrick Kane to give the Red Wings a 2-1 lead.
In the third, the Penguins would draw a penalty in the period’s first two minutes and capitalize on the ensuing power play. O’Connor potted his second goal of the game and fifth of the season to tie the game 2-2.
Following the Penguins’ early third-period goal, the Red Wings dominated the play the rest of the way, and J.T. Compher scored the go-ahead goal on a power play of their own with four minutes to go in the game. The Red Wings then iced the game with an empty-netter with 13 seconds remaining to cap off a 4-2 win.
