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Red Wings aim to avenge loss in Boston

Oct 14, 2013 - 2:42 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - The Detroit Red Wings suffered their worst loss of the young season when they visited Boston earlier this month. Mike Babcock's club will aim for a measure of revenge on Monday afternoon when the Red Wings visit the Bruins for a matinee at TD Garden.

The Bruins and Red Wings are Original Six rivals and now they're both playing in the Atlantic Division thanks to the onset of realignment. Boston drew first blood in the new divisional rivalry, however, beating Detroit by a 4-1 score on Oct. 5 at the Garden.

Boston netminder Tuukka Rask stopped 25-of-26 shots in the victory, which halted a four-game losing streak in the series for Boston. The Red Wings have taken five of the last seven meetings overall from the Bruins and three of the past five encounters in Beantown.

The Red Wings followed the loss in Boston with another regulation setback in their next game against Phoenix, but Detroit returned to the win column with Saturday's victory over Philadelphia. Henrik Zetterberg tallied twice in the third period, as Detroit downed the visiting Flyers, 5-2, at Joe Louis Arena.

Pavel Datsyuk and Niklas Kronwall each posted a goal and two helpers for the Red Wings, who pumped in their first three power-play goals of the season to help halt their two-game skid. Daniel Alfredsson picked up three assists and Todd Bertuzzi added a score to back Jimmy Howard's 32-save performance.

"I thought we entered the zone pretty good, we moved the puck around quite a bit and most important thing, we shot the puck," Bertuzzi said.

Howard has started all five games for Detroit this season and he will get the call again on Monday.

Meanwhile, Red Wings forward Jordin Tootoo is questionable for Monday after suffering a bruised right knee in Saturday's against Philadelphia. Tootoo was playing in his first game of the season on Saturday after missing the start of the campaign due to a shoulder injury.

Boston is 1-1-0 since its victory over the Red Wings earlier this month, losing a 2-0 home decision to Colorado on Thursday before bouncing back with Saturday's 3-1 triumph at Columbus.

Newcomer Loui Eriksson's goal 49 seconds into the third period broke a tie and Milan Lucic added an empty-netter in the final minute to lead the Bruins in Saturday's victory at Nationwide Arena.

Acquired in last summer's blockbuster trade that sent 2010 No. 2 overall draft pick Tyler Seguin to Dallas, Eriksson took a feed from Patrice Bergeron and fired a backhander behind Blue Jackets goalie Sergei Bobrovsky for his first goal in a Boston sweater.

"It wasn't the prettiest one, but I'll take it. It was nice to see it go in," Eriksson said.

Chris Kelly scored a second-period goal for the Bruins, who bounced back from their first loss to improve to 3-1-0 on the young season. Rask made 10 of his 26 saves over the final 20 minutes of Boston's first road game.

After playing on home ice today the Bruins will head out on a three-game road trip, beginning with Thursday's matchup against the Florida Panthers.