DETROIT, June 6 (UPI) -- Frustrated all night by the Carolina defense, the Detroit Red Wings came up with goals from Nicklas Lidstrom and Kris Draper in a span of 13 seconds late in the third period Thursday night and with a 3-1 victory over the Hurricanes tied the Stanley Cup Finals at a game each.
Carolina used the same formula it has all season to give itself a chance to steal a second straight game in Detroit's building, but that chance melted away in one quick flurry.
The Hurricanes, however, still have home-ice advantage in the best-of-seven series thanks to their overtime victory in Game 1. The series will resume when Raleigh, N.C., hosts its first Stanley Cup Finals game Saturday night.
The first two goals of the Thursday night's game both came shorthanded and the teams remained deadlocked for almost two full periods before another score could be produced.
That came with 5:08 to play when, with Carolina's Martin Gelinas in the penalty box for slashing, Lidstrom one-timed a pass from Sergei Federov that rose over the left shoulder of goaltender Arturs Irbe.
Carolina had killed off 11 straight penalties before giving up Lidstrom's goal.
The sellout crowd was still in full celebrating the go-ahead goal when Detroit added another. Off the ensuing faceoff, Lidstrom caught the Carolina defense asleep by hitting Draper with a pass that just avoided covering two lines and Draper beat a stunned Irbe to put the game out of reach.
The sudden burst of scoring ended a streak of nine straight playoff games in which Carolina had given up no more than two goals. One more would have tied the record of 10, set three seasons ago by the Dallas Stars en route to the Stanley Cup.
As the final seconds ticked away, the game turned nasty with five roughing penalties called.
"I think we have shown in the past that when we get mad, we start playing well," Draper said. "I think we are a better team when we don't like our opponent. We had a lot of emotion in this game and we are starting to not like these guys."
As they did in Game 1, the Red Wings scored first with Kirk Maltby getting the job done shorthanded. Draper and Maltby broke in two-on-one with Maltby firing it past Irbe from just inside the faceoff circle 6:33 into the game.
Carolina tied it on one of many Detroit's first-period giveaways. Skating on the power play, Detroit started to bring the puck up ice, but Carolina's Rod Brind'Amour anticipated a cross-ice pass from Fredrik Olausson and picked it off.
Brind'Amour made no mistake on the breakaway, faking goaltender Dominik Hasek to the ice and flicking the puck over him.
Defense then took over with Carolina failing to get off a shot for a span of 17:30 and the teams going through two entire power plays each without a shot on goal.
Detroit eventually turned up the heat in the third with Draper missing a wide open net just over a minute into the period and Irbe denying Igor Larionov from the doorstep with 13:22 left.
The Red Wings had 13 shots in the third period and 30 for the game, twice the number Carolina could manage.
