DETROIT - Exactly one month into the new season, a familiar problem is once again plaguing the Detroit Red Wings.

The dreaded shootout.

After losing their first six shootouts of 2013-14, the Red Wings have dropped all three this season following Sunday's 4-3 to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Joe Louis Arena.

The Red Wings erased a two-goal deficit against the top team in the Eastern Conference but couldn't capitalize on several good scoring chances in the third period and overtime as their four-game home winning streak came to an end when Ryan Callahan scored the only goal of the shootout.

Gustav Nyquist has scored Detroit's only shootout goal in eight attempts this season while the Red Wings have allowed five goals - all by Jimmy Howard - on seven chances by the opposition.

"We're pretty tired of losing in the shootout but at the same time, down 3-1, found a way to get a point, a small positive out of that, I guess," said Darren Helm, whose power-play goal midway through the second period started the comeback by making it 3-2.

"I don't know. It just seems like we haven't found a way to win those shootouts. We got lots of talent, lots of skilled guys that can put pucks in the net. But just haven't found a way to win any."

Nyquist, Tomas Tatar and Helm all failed to beat Tampa Bay goaltender Ben Bishop in the shootout. They're a combined 5-for-21 in shootouts during their young careers.

Nyquist is 1-for-8, Tatar is 3-for-10 and Helm is 1-for-3.

Nyquist didn't get a good shot off and Bishop stopped it easily with his pads, Tatar fired his attempt into Bishop's stick and Helm almost lost control of the puck before barely getting a shot off.

During regulation, Johan Franzen, Nyquist and Helm all scored high on Bishop's glove side but none of the Red Wings attempted to beat him there in the skills competition.

"Now, thinking back, maybe we should have gone high glove," said Nyquist, who scored his team-leading eighth goal to tie it 3-3 with 11:11 left. "You go out there, you have a move in mind, you try to see if something's is open. He did a good job.

"We haven't been good enough. Can't seem to find a way to score and then you don't win some shootouts. It's tough. You want to get that extra point when it comes down to it but we haven't been able to do that this year."

They weren't able to do it much last season, either.

The Red Wings were 5-9 in shootouts last season and had dropped 11 straight dating back to 2013 before finally beating Toronto 5-4 last Dec. 21.

Despite their struggles - the Red Wings are 43-53 all-time since shootouts were implemented in 2005-06 - coach Mike Babcock isn't going to spend a lot of time worrying about what's gone wrong.

The way Babcock saw it, the game shouldn't have went to the shootout given some of the chances the Red Wings had late in the game.

Niklas Kronwall had a great opportunity to end it with less than two minutes remaining in OT but Bishop got his right arm in front of a shot from the bottom of the left faceoff circle - "I knew there was going to be a pass so I got over there pretty quick and he went high," Bishop said - and Franzen had another great chance with just over a minute left but couldn't score.

"Obviously, that's something I don't spend a whole lot of time on," Babcock said when asked about the shootout. "That's why I got this great video guy named Andrew Brewer. He does all that work and he comes out and tells me who to shoot.

"Right now it isn't working as good as we want, but I think we should have just shot it in the net in overtime when we had all those good chances. So I'm going to spend no time worrying about it."

Although their home winning streak ended, the Red Wings did manage to rally and get at least one point for the third straight game and sixth in the last seven. The Red Wings are 3-1-3 in that span.

"I think it showed a lot of character," Luke Glendening said of the comeback. "Obviously, it's frustrating to lose in the shootout but I thought we came back and played OK. It wasn't our best game but you're not gonna have it every night.

"I thought we found a way to get a point."

Steven Stamko scored twice for the Lightning, who won their sixth straight and assumed sole possession of first place in the Eastern Conference with an 11-3-1 record. Tyler Johnson also scored for Tampa Bay, which leads the third-place Red Wings (7-3-5) by four points in the Atlantic Division.

"That was as close to a 60-minute game as we've played," said Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper. "We got the lead ... unfortunately, we couldn't protect the lead well enough. I think we dictated the play most of the game. Give Detroit credit.

"We bent but we didn't break."

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