Vancouver can't seem to catch a break on the road.
With a 3-1 loss to the Red Wings Thursday, the Canucks (10-10) have now dropped three straight away from home and falls to 10th in the West, just a point behind Detroit.
Henrik Zetterberg's fifth of the season in the third period proved to be the winner on Steve Yzerman night at the Joe Louis Arena when he placed a perfect top-shelf backhander past Roberto Luongo.
Making his first start since returning from a rib injury, the Canucks goaltender stopped 26 of 28 shots but was outplayed by Detroit's Jimmy Howard, who made 31 saves including a couple big ones early in the third period. Vancouver finished with 15 different players registering at least a shot on net, while the Red Wings had 13 contributors in that department.
However, it took only four shots before Detroit's Tomas Holmstrom opened the scoring -his ninth goal of the season- in usual fashion, while parked in front of the net on an Alex Burrows' goaltender interference penalty.
Mason Raymond tied it up in the second with his eighth tally this year when a shot by Kevin Bieksa deflected off his skate and past Howard. His goal also came on the powerplay, the team's 20th man advantage goal this season.
Vancouver finished the night 1-for-5 on the powerplay, failing to score on a short five-on-three advantage in the middle frame.
With a 1-3 record on their road trip so far, the Canucks will head into Colorado Saturday to close out their five-gamer. It'll be the third meeting between these two teams this season, as both have collected a 3-0 win against each other.
