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Roy, Avalanche lose first of season to old rival Red Wings

Oct 18, 2013 - 5:41 AM Denver, CO (SportsNetwork.com) - Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen each scored twice as Detroit handed Colorado its first loss of the season with a 4-2 victory on Thursday at Pepsi Center.

Daniel Alfredsson had three assists, while Jonas Gustavsson made 38 saves for the Red Wings, who have won four straight.

"We usually play good here and tonight was no exception," said Franzen. "We slowed them down as much as we could. It was a little rough in the second, but we'll take a tie going into the third anytime against them."

Colorado had won its first six games of the season under new head coach Patrick Roy and were attempting to match the best start in franchise history, but were unable to break the 7-0-0 mark set by the 1985-86 Quebec Nordiques under Michel Bergeron.

Roy remained tied with his old Canadiens head coach Mario Tremblay for the most consecutive wins to begin a coaching career at six.

Erik Johnson and Gabriel Landeskog each had a goal for the Avalanche, who got 24 saves from Semyon Varlamov in the loss.

With the score tied in the third, Franzen put his team up by a goal on the power play when his one-timer from the right circle off a feed by Justin Abdelkader beat Varlamov to the right corner at 7:10.

Detroit made it a 4-2 game with 6:25 to play as Alfredsson held the puck at the left circle and fed it to the slot from Datsyuk, who got a backhand off that Varlamov stopped, but was there to put in his own rebound.

Colorado pulled Varlamov with two minutes to play, but Gustavsson made the lead stand with a pair of stops on Matt Duchene.

"We still have a great record," said Duchene. "It's unfortunate because we played a hard game, but they did too and that's a good team over there."

An ugly play occurred 2:13 into the game as Detroit's Niklas Kronwall went into his left corner to play a dump-in, and was slammed into the boards by Colorado forward Cody McLeod.

Kronwall laid on the ice and was moving before being taken off on a stretcher. The team later said that he had some cuts near his right ear and had a concussion. He will be re-evaluated on Friday.

McLeod received a major for boarding and was thrown out of the game,

Detroit made him pay for the hit, as Franzen scored down low off a pass from Henrik Zetterberg at 6:08.

The Wings made it a 2-0 game at the 15-minute mark of the first when Datsyuk put home a rebound from in front.

Colorado tied the game with a pair of power-play goals in the second period with Johnson scoring off a wrister from the right circle at 2:36, and Landeskog posting his first red light of the year on a shot from the slot at 14:42.

Game Notes

Colorado hits the road for the next two games starting Saturday in Buffalo ... Detroit plays in Phoenix on Saturday ... Colorado and Detroit both went 2- for-5 on the power play ... Detroit won all three games against Colorado last season.