Best vs. worst showdown leaves Red Wings feeling like true kings
Detroit 6, Los Angeles 2
Best vs. worst showdown leaves Red Wings feeling like true kings
December 20, 2007
BY HELENE ST. JAMES
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
The NHL's best clashed with the NHL's worst Wednesday night, to a predictable outcome.
A brief rally by the Kings was just that: brief. By game's end, the Wings had goals from six players to pocket a 6-2 victory before 19,516 at Joe Louis Arena.
It was a season high in goals for the Wings, who have won 15 of the last 16 meetings between the teams. The Wings used their latest to reach 25 victories, matching their best start ever to 25 wins set in 1995-96, the season the Wings went on to win a league-record 62 games.
Niklas Kronwall had a career-high four assists, and Henrik Zetterberg collected his 25th goal. Jiri Hudler, Tomas Holmstrom, Dan Cleary, Johan Franzen and Valtteri Filppula also had goals.
"I thought that we played a very good game in every area," Cleary said. "Our power play was good. I thought all the four lines generated offense and were good away from the puck. We controlled the game in every area."
Dominik Hasek needed to make just 18 saves against the Kings, who have an NHL-low 26 points. Jason LaBarbera faced 35 shots.
"It's been obvious at home the last three games, we've played teams that have been below us and they've given us a real good run," Cleary said of a stretch that included Washington and Florida. "We definitely didn't take this team lightly by any means. They've got talented forwards that we paid real good attention to, and our key tonight was to get a lot of shots on LaBarbera and traffic. That was the key -- we got a lot of goals."
Not even a minute had gone by before the Wings had a lead. While on a power play, Nicklas Lidstrom sent the puck to Zetterberg, whose shot slipped by LaBarbera 59 seconds after the opening face-off. The Wings doubled up at 7:37, when Kronwall's shot landed at Hudler's feet; Hudler collected the puck to his forehand and snapped a shot that gave him his eighth goal of the season.
Hasek came up with a big save on Anze Kopitar after an odd-man rush, but the Kings managed to solve Hasek during their first power play of the game, pulling within one at 18:32. Lubomir Visnovsky took a shot that bounced off Lidstrom's skate, and Dustin Brown converted the rebound.
Fifteen seconds into the second period, the Kings stunned Hasek when Patrick O'Sullivan got the puck off the face-off, rushed up the left flank and lifted a forehand that sailed in just over Hasek's glove.
"We got off to a good start for sure," Mike Babcock said. "They got a power-play goal and then they got that second one, so you're starting all over again."
Relief came just a few minutes later in the form of the first line: Zetterberg threw the puck to the net, and it hit Tom Preissing's glove and fell right at LaBarbera's feet; Holmstrom stuffed the puck before LaBarbera could maneuver to control it.
The two-goal lead was restored at 11:45 of the second period, on another power play. Cleary did a good job to get the puck in Detroit's possession while battling in the slot area, and got it over to Mikael Samuelsson, who passed it back to Kronwall; he wound up at the blue line and took a shot that Cleary tipped.
Franzen provided the next goal, when he picked up Andreas Lilja's rebound taken off the opening face-off of the third period. Filppula's sent a high forehand shot on net at 8:57 that went in off Visnovsky, finishing off the Wings' offensive outburst.