Back in business

By Michael Caples –

DETROIT – During their prior six games, the Red Wings struggled to find the back of the opposition’s net. On Saturday, they scored so many goals they chased the Ducks’ starting goaltender.

Nicklas Lidstrom’s two-goal night led Detroit to a 5-0 win over the Anaheim Ducks – the Wings’ first victory in over two weeks. Jimmy Howard recorded 22 saves to earn his second shutout of the season. Anaheim netminder Jonas Hiller was pulled halfway through the third period after allowing five goals on 45 shots.

“Obviously we needed a win badly,” coach Mike Babcock said. “To tell you the truth, I would have taken playing poorly and winning, because we’ve played a lot of good games and not won, and so we just needed to win. It was nice to see some guys score some goals so you can get the weight off the world of your back, and now we can get on with having a good home stand.”

The Wings controlled play from the opening face-off, and it showed in the shots chart. Detroit out-shot Anaheim 18-7 in the first period, 18-6 in the second, and 14-9 in the third. The Wings’ 50 total shots is a season-high.

“Yeah I thought we had a great effort for 60 minutes tonight,” Lidstrom said. “I thought we stuck with it, even after the first period we were up one nothing, we just told ourselves in here to stick with the game plan and keep shooting the puck and keep spending time in their zone, and I thought we were able to do that tonight.”

Niklas Kronwall opened the scoring at 7:04 of the first period, firing a shot through traffic from the point to put the Wings in the lead. It was the lone marker of the opening period.

The Wings followed with two quick goals in the second period. At the 1:55 mark, Henrik Zetterberg caught a pass from Johan Franzen with his skate, kicked the puck to his stick, and snapped a shot past Jonas Hiller. Fifty seconds later, Lidstrom scored his first of the night, firing a loose puck from the top of the left circle.

Less than two minutes into the third period, Lidstrom took a behind-the-back pass from Pavel Datsyuk and blasted from the middle of the blue line to score his second goal. Franzen finished Hiller’s night at the 10:37 mark, scoring on a rebound from just above the Anaheim crease.

The Wings return to action Tuesday night, when they welcome the Colorado Avalanche to Joe Louis Arena. Howard said that getting the 5-0 win was very important for his squad moving forward.

“It’s huge, I mean, the hardest one to get when you’re on a skid like that is the first one, and now that we got that under our belts, it’s just back to business as usual.”