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Lang breaks out of slump as Red Wings rout Blackhawks

Mar 3, 2007 - 5:42 AM DETROIT (Ticker) -- Tomas Holmstrom's goal-scoring streak came to an end, but the Detroit Red Wings' successful run against the Chicago Blackhawks did not, thanks to Robert Lang.

Lang ended his slump with a goal and three assists as the Red Wings remained perfect this season against the Blackhawks with a 6-2 triumph.

With the win, the Red Wings (41-16-8) improved to 5-0-2 in their last seven games and pulled even in points with the idle Nashville Predators for first place in the Central Division.

Detroit's offense has been led of late by Holmstrom, who scored six goals in his previous three games, including his second hat trick of the season in a 4-3 overtime loss at Nashville on Saturday. The Swede - who tallied twice in Tuesday's win at Chicago - was kept off the scoresheet in this one, but Lang picked up the slack in a big way.

A six-time 20-goal scorer, Lang entered without a point in his previous nine games. The veteran Czech halted the drought just over six minutes into the contest with a power-play goal, taking a pass from defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom and beating goaltender Patrick Lalime from the left faceoff circle.

"It's nice," Lang said of ending his drought. "It's nice to have a nice little night when things fall your way or you get good little bounces. It was nice. Nick got his 200th goal and all that. It was just kind of nice."

Lang set up blue-liner Mathieu Schneider's goal in the final seconds of the opening period before assisting on tallies by Lidstrom and Johan Franzen in the third for a season-high four points.

The goal by Lidstrom, who added two assists, was the 200th of his career. Just 40 seconds into the third, the four-time Norris Trophy winner blasted a slap shot from the blue line past netminder Nikolai Khabibulin during a man advantage for a 5-1 cushion.

"It feels good, but it doesn't feel anything special," Lidstrom said. "It's the middle of the season. I think you're going to appreciate it a lot more when you look back and are done playing hockey. It sure is nice to get that off my back. The guys have been bugging me for quite a while here."

Valtteri Filppula and Jiri Hudler also scored and Pavel Datsyuk set up three tallies for Detroit, which improved to 14-0-1 in its last 15 meetings with Chicago.

"I thought Fil and Hudler did real good tonight," Lidstrom said. "We've got good depth throughout our lineup. They're making a contribution. They can skate and know how to play."

Former Red Wing Jason Williams scored both goals for the Blackhawks, who have lost three in a row and eight of nine.

"Coming back and playing against your old teammates is always fun, but I wished we'd have come out of it with the two points," Williams said. "It doesn't matter if you score a hat trick, the win is what you're coming in here for."

Chris Osgood only needed to make 17 saves for Detroit in place of Dominik Hasek, who did not dress due to a tender thigh.

"It's good to get in at home," Osgood said. "Offensively, we played awesome tonight. We were making plays, we weren't giving the puck away at the blue line. We were taking it to the net quite a bit. We scored some big goals tonight."