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Red Wings hand Wild 10th straight road defeat

Dec 28, 2006 - 4:10 AM DETROIT (Ticker) -- Detroit Red Wings coach Mike Babcock is ready for his team to face someone else besides the Minnesota Wild.

Henrik Zetterberg scored his 14th goal of the season and Johan Franzen added a tally and an assist to lead the Red Wings to their fifth win in seven games, a 3-1 triumph over the Wild.

Detroit defeated Minnesota for the second time in three meetings over the past six days, handing the Wild their 10th consecutive road loss. Minnesota has not won away from home since November 16 at Nashville.

"We liked the way we started and the way we played tonight until we got up 3-0," Babcock said. "Then we got it on cruise control a little bit.

"(The Wild) can skate. They've got good players and they have good goaltending, so you know it's going to be tough. There's no separation in the league now. Every night is tough."

After Kirk Maltby opened the scoring for Detroit just 16 seconds into the contest, Pavel Datsyuk set up Zetterberg on the doorstep at 4:03 of the second session, when he beat goaltender Niklas Backstrom.

Maltby, who has 109 goals in 835 career games, scored just his second tally of the season -both of which have come in his last four contests.

"I'm on fire," Maltby said sarcastically. "It's nice to be on the right end of one of those goals instead of against. It's just a matter of sticking with it, regardless of the way things are going."

"They got a shot on the net and it bumped in from somebody's skate," Backstrom said of Maltby's goal. "It's a bad bounce and a bad break for us, but that's the way it goes in hockey."

Just 2:43 later, Franzen netted his fourth tally - and first since November 14 at Vancouver - with a bad-angle shot from near the left corner that got inside the left goalpost.

Six-time Vezina Trophy winner Dominik Hasek yielded a second-period goal by Pavol Demitra but finished with 31 saves to raise his career mark against the Wild to 7-0-2.

"I think we played really well for 35 minutes," Hasek said. "After the third goal, we got a little sloppy defensively. Overall, we played good hockey for 35 minutes and it was good enough to win."

"Obviously, having goaltending is everything," Babcock said. "It's the greatest equalizer, and right now, Dom is playing well and we're going to get (Chris Osgood) going (Thursday against Columbus) and we think we've got a good 1-2 combo that's real good for us."

Backstrom stopped 30 shots for the Wild, who are 4-14-1 on the road this season.

"You start against a team like that that's potent offensively," Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire said. "We gave up a goal and then we took a couple of penalties. It was a big thing to do to try and come back from that start."