Red Wings Blank Ducks 2-0

Defense won the Stanley Cup for the Detroit Red Wings last season, and defense will be the watchword again if they expect to repeat.

After Chris Osgood surrendered one goal in each of Detroit's first three games following the Olympic break, backup Kevin Hodson earned his fourth career shutout with 35 saves Wednesday night in a 2-0 victory over the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.

"Guys take a lot of pride in defense," defenseman Aaron Ward said. "No one wants to be on the ice for a goal against, so you challenge yourself when you're out there because you don't want to let each other down. That's something the coaches preach and the players believe in."

After 62 games, the Red Wings have only four players with a negative plus-minus rating. Steve Yzerman, Martin Lapointe and Jamie Pushor are each minus-1. Bob Rouse is minus-5. Larry Murphy, an 18-year veteran defenseman who turns 37 on Sunday, is their best two-way player at plus-26.

"The key to our defensive game is that a lot of the guys are taking pride in their defense and making a commitment to playing a defensive system," Hodson said."With the talent we have at forward, we're going to get a lot of scoring chances if we make a good defensive play."

That's what happened on Detroit's second goal. Sergei Fedorov fanned on a shot and Anaheim's Boris Mironov headmanned the puck to Richard Park, whose wrist shot from the top of the left circle was stopped by Hodson.

Detroit defenseman Anders Eriksson quickly cleared the rebound off the boards and into the neutral zone, where Yzerman caught up to the puck and took off on a two-on-one break with Brendan Shanahan against defenseman David Karpa. Yzerman's 15-foot wrist shot beat Mikhail Shtalenkov to the stick side for the insurance goal with 4:11 remaining.

"Tonight was one of our tougher games because we gave up so many chances," Detroit center Igor Larionov said."But the key to our success is our defensive game. Everybody concentrates on defense and stays with the system. There's no way we can have a great offense and a bad defense. You have to have a good balance."

The penalty-killing unit also has had a hand in Detroit's four-game unbeaten streak (3-0-1) coming out of the Olympic break. They have killed off all 23 shorthanded situations, including five against Anaheim.

"I keep watching the tapes and they don't forecheck hard. They just play the same style as they do five-on-five," Ducks coach Pierre Page said after watching his team get shut out for the ninth time.

"They have three guys across the blue line, one guy forechecking, and they sort of steer you away. Their forwards are very quick, they're smart and they seem to be in position."

The defending Stanley Cup champs, who won three overtime games during their sweep of Anaheim i the second round of last year's playoffs, scored their first goal at 14:44 of the first period after Tomas Sandstrom was sent off for tripping Sergei Fedorov.

Brent Gilchrist redirected a one-timer from 50 feet in the slot by Niklas Lidstrom for his 13th goal - three more than he had in 67 games last season for Dallas.

Hodson did the rest, handing Anaheim its sixth shutout loss at Anaheim Arena this season.

"The one thing you've got to look at is that we've been getting great goaltending, too," Ward said."You want to play a very good defensive game, a disciplined game. But if everything breaks down, you need your goaltender making big saves."

The shutout was the first by the Red Wings on the road since Dec. 4 of last season, when Hodson beat Washington 2-0. His other one was eight weeks ago against Phoenix.

"When you play in front of a guy like Ozzie, you kind of cherish your starts because you don't get too many of them," Hodson said.

Shtalenkov, who extended the Red Wings to double overtime in the series clincher last May while filling in for the injured Guy Hebert - and stopped 70 of 73 shots - again caused problems for Detroit with 31 saves en route to his third shutout loss of the season.

"Everybody in the organization told me he usually plays well against Detroit," Page said,"so we thought we'd give him his chance again and he played very well."

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