DETROIT — Fittingly on a night the Red Wings celebrated past Stanley Cup champions, fans Thursday were able to celebrate an exciting present-day Wings victory.
Andrew Copp, the Ann Arbor native who cheered those 1997 and 1998 Cup winning Wings' teams, scored his first goal as a Red Wing late in the third period, helping send the Wings to a 3-1 victory.
Copp took a pass from Adam Erne and snuck a shot through the legs of Capitals goalie Darcy Kuemper at 16 minutes, 10 seconds, giving the Wings their first lead.
Copp then fed Dylan Larkin, after the Wings had killed a Washington power play, for an empty-net goal with 27.5 seconds left, Larkin's sixth goal.
Lucas Raymond (power play) and Washington's Alex Ovechkin traded second-period goals.
Goalie Ville Husso stopped 33 shots, as he continues to solidify the starting goaltending job.
The Wings won the special teams game within the game, scoring a power-play goal while killing all three Washington power plays.
For Ovechkin, the goal was No. 786 of his career, tying Gordie Howe for most goals with a single franchise.
Ovechkin met Gordie's son Mark, who was at Little Caesars Arena Thursday taking part in the Wings' celebration of the 1997-98 Stanley Cup winning teams (Mark Howe was a director of professional scouting for the Wings). The two met briefly and had a photograph taken shortly before the game.
Ovechkin's goal was a typical Ovechkin goal, a wicked one-timer from the dot on a feed from linemate Evgeny Kuznetsov.
"You can still defend his shot correctly, if you will, and he can still score from a distance," said coach Derek Lalonde, talking about Ovechkin's powerful shot on the power play. "You have to minimize his looks."
Ovechkin's goal gave the Capitals a 1-0 lead. But the Wings were able to tie the game on their second power-play attempt.
Raymond missed a backdoor put-in on a pass from Dominik Kubalik early in the power play. But getting a second opportunity, Raymond didn't miss, tapping a Kubalik feed past goalie Kuemper, who couldn't react quick enough from the other post.
There was a buzz at Little Caesars Arena from the start, as the Wings celebrated the Stanley Cup winning teams.
Lalonde and current players were able to mingle with then coach Scotty Bowman and players from that era at the morning skate. There was an on-ice celebration before the game, with owner Marian Ilitch, governor/president/chief executive officer Chris Ilitch, senior-vice president Jimmy Devellano, and former general manager Ken Holland along with numerous players off those teams being honored and the crowd roaring with the 1997 championship banner raising ceremony.
Lalonde talked after Thursday's morning skate about the championship Wings' team, and how this current roster can learn from that squad.
"They had to start somewhere," said Lalonde, who saw a comparison from those Wings' teams and the Tampa team Lalonde was an assistant with the last four seasons and won two Stanley Cups. "It's a great reference. We are somewhere in that process where they were.
"When you start to reflect back on those guys, they're special players, but I saw an article today about how those guys wanted to come to work every day. Those are championship teams. I was very fortunate to be part of something like that (in Tampa). That's what we want to be. That's why it's pretty neat to have those guys around (the rink)."
"I love those guys being around. There's a swagger to it, a confidence. Getting to the top in this league is so hard. The way they did it, the way they stayed there, had to go through adversity, it's just neat to have that history within the organization."
