Red Wings Pound Bruins 6-1
DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Red Wings used a balanced offense to take care of the Boston Bruins.
Niklas Kronwall, Henrik Zetterberg, Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar each had a goal and an assist in the Red Wings' 6-1 win over the Bruins on Wednesday night.
"We work pretty hard most nights. Today we were rewarded. We had puck luck and got some energy and got going. I think that was the biggest thing," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said.
"We've played lots of good games this year; we haven't won lots of games. That's the fact, because we never score. The puck's been going in. I thought we built off what we've been building and it was a positive for the guys."
The six goals are the most the team has scored in a game this season.
Justin Abdelkader and Drew Miller and also scored for Detroit. Johan Franzen had three assists, Joakim Andersson two assists and Jonas Gustavsson made 16 saves.
"We really went after it tonight. It felt like we skated a lot, we played the kind of game we want to play. When we do that we're a really good team," said Gustavsson, who ran his season record to 6-0-1.
"I don't know if it was our team that was really good or Boston had an off night. If we play like this we know we're going to win a lot of games. I feel like last few weeks we've been going in the right direction. Hopefully we have some more gears. I think we have, because we have a young group. Really good team effort."
Jarome Iginla scored for Boston and Tuukka Rask stopped 22 shots.
"Everything we did tonight was just a disaster," Bruins coach Claude Julien said.
Abdelkader opened the scoring at 11:49 of the first period when he put in a loose puck from the bottom of the left circle off the rush, 11 seconds after Detroit killed off a high-sticking penalty to Franzen. It was Abdelkader's third goal of the season.
The Red Wings scored three goals in less than four minutes in the second period.
Tatar made it 2-0 at 6:05 of the second period. He scored on a wraparound after carrying the puck from just outside the Red Wings' blue line and falling down and getting back up — while maintaining control of the puck — in the right circle. It was Tatar's third goal.
Zetterberg made it 3-0 at 8:47 when he scored from the left circle for his 11th goal. Kronwall scored on the power play, just 1:14 later.
"It was nice. Our second periods haven't been our best and tonight we found a way," Zetterberg said. "Specialty teams were good, our PK and we scored a goal on the power play."
This is the way Rask saw it: "In the second period we didn't create much and didn't give them much but they scored three goals."
Miller scored his second goal of the season at 8:38 of the third period and Nyquist got his third goal of the season with 2:53 remaining in the game.
Iginla spoiled Gustavsson shutout attempt with 2:25 left.
NOTES: Detroit C Pavel Datsyuk missed his second game after being elbowed in the face by Ottawa D Jared Cowen on Saturday night. Datsyuk has also been ruled out of Friday's game at the New York Islanders. ... Boston D Dennis Seidenberg didn't play due to a lower-body injury. ... Red Wings RW Todd Bertuzzi missed his third game with an upper-body injury. ... Bruins D Torey Krug is from the Detroit suburb of Livonia and played at Michigan State. ... Detroit D Jonathan Ericsson signed a six-year, $25.5 million contract extension. ... Gustavsson got his second consecutive start. ... Detroit D Brendan Smith went to the dressing room after falling into the boards shoulder-first early in the third period.
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