Red Wings Back To Winning Ways

At the start of the fifth game of the season, the Detroit Red Wings were 2/4 and hadn't scored a single powerplay goal. Sure they'd done pretty well on the penalty kill, fending off some serious five on three attacks, but after ten attempts, had not been able to take man advantage and grab some goals.

That changed last night when the Red Wings welcomed the Struggling Philadelphia Flyers to the Joe Louis Arena. 

Detroit didn't take long to open the scoring when Todd Bertuzzi, promoted to the first line, scored a great wrap-around after Michael Raffl went to the box for hooking. Raffl had been called up to deal with the Flyers' injury woes.

The second period brought more goals and more penalties. Luke Schenn's trip to the box allowed Niklas Kronwall the chance to remind us he's not just there to flatten the opposition. The big Swede opened his scoring account for the season. 

Erik Gustafsson immediately decided to emulate his fellow countryman and sent a slapshot past Jimmy Howard to get his first of the season and Philadelphia's first of the game.

Braydon Coburn's high sticking penalty early in the third gave Detroit the man advantage and Russian superstar Pavel Datsyuk was able to find the back of the net with a lovely backhand shot.

Tye McGinn, also recalled from the Adirondack Phantoms gave the Flyers hope by reducing the deficit to one. 

Henrik Zetterberg didn't want to be the only first liner without a goal and with an assist from Datsyuk, wristed past Ray Emery to make the score 4-2. 

Emery was pulled at the end of the third but this only gave the advantage to Zetterberg who made it 5-2 by finding the empty net. 

Although the Flyers lost the game, they did manage lots of shots against Howard and McGinn has probably guaranteed himself some NHL level hockey for a while after grabbing his first goal. Disciplinary issues marred an otherwise constructive game for Philly as Detroit were able to get three goals on the powerplay. This is definitely something the team needs to look at.

Philly are last in the Metropolitan Division, and it's hard enough to win from the top, never mind the bottom. Sure this is a rebuilding season but the team are 1/5 and with Vancouver, Pittsburgh and the NY Rangers up next on the schedule, it's gonna be a tough week. OK maybe not Vancouver. Sorry Alex!

Detroit can take a lot of positives from the game, the line shuffle worked well, with all of the first liners getting on the scoreboard. The team has also broken its powerplay duck. We've already seen the defensive special teams perform this season, now it looks like things are falling into place at the sharp end.

New Red Wing Daniel Alfredsson is settling into life at Detroit. He assisted on two the goals last night to double his points total for the season.

Detroit has a tough few days ahead, tomorrow they head over to Boston and on Tuesday they host Columbus.