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Red Wings use balanced attack to blast Oilers

Feb 8, 2009 - 12:02 AM DETROIT (Ticker) -- The Detroit Red Wings' longest losing streak of the season seems like a distant memory.

Marian Hossa, Pavel Datsyuk and defenseman Brian Rafalski each collected a goal and an assist as the Red Wings claimed their third straight win Saturday, an 8-3 thrashing of the Edmonton Oilers.

Captain Nicklas Lidstrom, fellow blue-liner Brett Lebda, Daniel Cleary, Mikael Samuelsson and rookie Ville Leino also scored while Ty Conklin made 23 saves for Detroit.

Defenseman Niklas Kronwall collected three assists and Jiri Hudler recorded a pair for the Red Wings, who lost five consecutive games to end the month of January but appear to have righted the ship.

"We talked about how bad we were for a while, but suddenly, we've won three in a row," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said.

Zack Stortini, Dustin Penner and Marc Pouliot scored third-period goals for the Oilers, but it was too little, too late.

This one looked more like an ambush early as the Red Wings blitzed goaltender Dwayne Roloson for five first-period goals, including three in the opening 5:44.

"We wanted to emphasize the start," Babcock said. "(Edmonton) is in the eighth (playoff) spot. That means it's a playoff game for them. That's what it's going to be every day for us. These teams are all so close. We're not getting any teams that are 20 or 30 points out."

Rafalski opened the scoring with a power-play goal 1:47 into the game, and Detroit was off and running from there as Lebda and Cleary tallied 2:26 apart to push the lead to 3-0.

Hossa's goal came with the man advantage with 6:59 remaining in the opening period, and Datsyuk capped the burst with his 20th of the season with 1:58 left.

"It's nice to have that support early," Conklin said. "We were scoring good goals. There weren't any lucky bounces. The things we always talk about, we were doing."

The five first-period goals, which chased Roloson from the game, were the most scored by the Red Wings in a period since a five-goal session during a 9-1 win over Tampa Bay on April 8, 1993.

"We knew they were going to come out hard at the start," Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish said. "They weren't playing up to their standards. I heard it's been a boot camp around here."

Roloson made 11 saves in the first before giving way to rookie Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers. The first-year netminder made nine saves in the second before Lidstrom beat him with seven seconds left to make it 6-0.

After the Oilers started a rally with three goals in the opening 11:41 of the third, Samuelsson and Leino scored goals 14 seconds apart late in the period to eliminate Edmonton's thoughts of a miraculous comeback.

"We relaxed way too much in the third period instead of continuing to go after them like we did in the first period," Kronwall said. "They were almost back in the game, but then we got two quick goals, and that was nice."