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Wednesday, Oct. 25 7:30pm ET
Wings capitalize on penalties early | |||||
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DETROIT (AP) -- The Detroit Red Wings wanted to get their power play going and the Tampa Bay Lightning were more than happy to help. The Red Wings turned a first-period two-man advantage into a pair of goals, and went on to an easy 5-1 victory Wednesday night. Detroit extended its winning streak to three games, while Tampa Bay lost for the third time in four games. Detroit picked up two goals in 48 seconds after penalties to Martin St. Louis and Pavel Kubina gave the Red Wings the two-man advantage midway through the opening period. The Red Wings needed just 33 seconds to capitalize, as Brendan Shanahan took a pass at the blue line, skated to the top of the faceoff circle and fired a shot past Kevin Weekes for his third goal of the season. That got St. Louis out of the box, but Kubina was still there when Martin Lapointe blew past Petr Svoboda at the Tampa Bay blue line and beat Weekes with a slap shot at 14:39. "When Steve (Duchesne) got me the puck, I was right on top of Svoboda, so I made a quick move so that he wouldn't hit me," Lapointe said. "Once I got by him, I was in the zone, so I just let one go, and it went in. That was just the kind of start we needed." Detroit entered the game ranked 18th with the man advantage, so the quick goals gave them even more of a lift. "With two referees, special teams are going to be really important this year, and our power play was really struggling," Shanahan said. "It was really important for us to get that going tonight - we were throwing the puck at the net and trying to crash the crease. That really paid off for us." Tampa Bay coach Steve Ludzik was disgusted at giving Detroit the two-man advantage. "Stupid, selfish penalties cost us this game," he said. "You can't just hand chances like that to the Red Wings. Not if you want to play on the level of a playoff team." The Lightning got back into the game at 11:39 of the second on Alexander Kharitonov's second goal of the season, and nearly tied it moments later on Wayne Primeau's breakaway. Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood stopped Primeau, and the Red Wings broke back down the ice allowing Sergei Fedorov to beat Weekes at 13:09 for his fifth goal. "That seems to happen so often in hockey -- a guy makes a great save and his team goes right down and scores," said Tampa Bay's Mike Johnson. "But it is still demoralizing. We had given them the two quick goals, and then we had gotten back into things and had a chance to tie it. So it was hard to be down 3-1 all of a sudden." Larry Murphy increased the Detroit lead to 4-1 at 18:14 of the second, scoring his first goal of the season. "We fought hard, and we were pretty even 5-on-5, at least for most of the first two periods," Ludzik said. "But once they got ahead 3-1, we really had to open it up. And we can't play that way -- not against a team like Detroit." The Red Wings made it 5-1 on an odd third-period goal that required a lengthy replay review. Shanahan took a shot from the hashmarks just as Kubina knocked Brent Gilchrist into the net. The puck barely crossed the line before hitting the curled-up Gilchrist. Officials eventually ruled that Gilchrist was pushed into the crease and he was credited with his first goal of the season. Game notesThe Lightning got to play a rare game in front of the team's top brass. Owner Bill Davidson and CEO Tom Wilson made the 30-mile trip down I-75 from Auburn Hills, where they run the NBA's Detroit Pistons. ... Two Red Wings moved closer to career milestones. Osgood won his 199th game, and Murphy picked up his 1,199th point. | ALSO SEE NHL Scoreboard Tampa Bay Clubhouse Detroit Clubhouse RECAPS Buffalo 4 Carolina 1
Detroit 5 AUDIO/VIDEO   Brendan Shanahan puts in his second goal of the game.avi: 598 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 | |||||