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Cleary, Hasek help Red Wings tame Wild

Dec 23, 2007 - 4:56 AM By Brian Hall PA Sportsticker Contributing Writer

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Ticker) - Even playing without two of their leading scorers, the Detroit Red Wings had plenty of offense to continue their dominance against the Minnesota Wild.

Daniel Cleary had a goal and assist and Dominik Hasek made 18 saves Saturday night as the Red Wings cruised to a 4-1 triumph over the Wild.

Detroit is 16-6-4 all-time against the Wild, including a 7-3-3 mark at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

Pavel Datsyuk, Johan Franzen and Tomas Kopecky also scored for the Red Wings, who avoided back-to-back losses after losing a one-goal game Thursday at St. Louis. Only once this season have they had a losing streak of any kind, a three-game drought in mid-November.

"It was probably one of our most dominating games of the season," Hasek said. "We dominated every 20 minutes. We beat them every 20 minutes. You know, we were missing two of our best stars, two big shots on our team, and still, it was a great team effort."

Henrik Zetterberg, who ranks second in the NHL with 25 goals and 50 points, missed his first game of the season with back spasms, and linemate Tomas Holmstrom was out with a knee injury. The two have combined for 42 goals and 81 points this season.

In their absence, Datsyuk - who typically centers Zetterberg and Holmstrom - helped keep the offense alive.

"You go through the whole group... everybody had a pretty good night for us," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said.

Datsyuk scored his 14th of the season at 6:57 of the first period to give the Red Wings a 1-0 edge when he controlled a rebound in front of Wild goaltender Niklas Backstrom and put it between his pads. Backstrom stopped the first two shots on the power play, but gave up rebounds each time, before Detroit made the last one count.

Backstrom started for the first time since missing four games with an injury. He kept the Wild in the game with 47 saves. Detroit unleashed 51 shots on goal in this contest, while yielding just 19.

"One thing is we're not skating like we can, and if you don't, this is how you're going to look," Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire said. "We're not on the puck enough, watching them. They were missing two of their top guys and still, look what they did. All four lines were as good as each other."

The Red Wings thought they had added another power-play tally in the second. Backstrom stopped a shot from the faceoff circle, made contact with Franzen and fell backward. The puck slid out front and was put home by Brett Lebda, but it was waved off after a video review showed the puck went in off a referee's skate.

Franzen then added a goal with 4:36 left in the middle session. With Mikael Samuelsson forechecking along the boards, the puck came free to Franzen and he skated around the Minnesota net and then fired it high over Backstrom's left shoulder to give Detroit a 2-0 lead.

Just 45 ticks later, Cleary added his 12th of the season on a breakaway. The Wild turned the puck over in their offensive zone and Detroit defenseman Niklas Lidstrom flipped the puck high to a streaking Cleary, who got behind Minnesota blue-liner Brent Burns and shot it past Backstrom on the left side.

"I tried to get it over their 'D', the guy that is right in the middle there," Lidstrom said. "I was hoping someone was going to go there, so he was able to read that when I threw the flipper out there."

The Wild cut the deficit to 3-1 with nine seconds left in the second on defenseman Kim Johnsson's first goal of the season. On a power play, Marian Gaborik controlled the puck near the left faceoff circle and passed through to an open Johnsson on the other side. Johnsson's shot got past Hasek after deflecting off Red Wings blue-liner Chris Chelios.

Kopecky provided the final margin at 9:59 of the final session with his third tally of the season.

"We played a really patient game, especially defensively," Lidstrom said. "I don't think we gave them a whole lot. They spent a lot of time in their own end. We were aggressive in the neutral zone, and just played smart, road hockey."

The loss ended a four-game winning streak for Minnesota.

"We couldn't get five guys on the same page," Minnesota's Mark Parrish said. "Felt like we were chasing all night, and it's probably what it looked like."

"I don't care who you are, back-to-back in the league is tough," Babcock said of Thursday's loss. "Especially when you are playing a team that's fresh like St. Louis was. That was a tough game for us, and we didn't like our specialty teams, and we didn't like losing, obviously."