Wings Down Stars to Sweep Preseason Home-and-Home

Two days after defeating the Dallas Stars in Dallas, the Detroit Red Wings earned a 4-2 win over the Stars in Detroit, sweeping the preseason home-and-home matchup between the two teams.

Dallas put pressure on the Red Wings early, with good scoring chances coming twice in the first six minutes of the game. Just over two minutes in, the Stars missed a chance by sending the puck wide of the net while Detroit goalie Manny Legace was sprawled out of position. Two-and-a-half minutes later, Legace made a big save to shift the momentum.

At the 8:46 mark, Brendan Shanahan scored on the rebound of a shot by Jason Williams to put Detroit on the board.

Just 37 seconds later, at 9:23, Jason Arnott tied the game. Dallas netminder Marty Turco came out of his net to play the puck, seemingly outside of the trapezoid-shaped area where goalies are now allowed to stickhandle. Turco stopped the puck before it entered the restricted area but Detroit’s forechecker had already pulled back. Turco got the puck to a Dallas defender who sent it up to Arnott. Arnott skated in alone and blasted a shot past Legace.

The Red Wings regained the lead with 7:32 remaining in the second period while skating shorthanded. Detroit forecheckers Johan Franzen and Dan Cleary stole the puck at the side of the Dallas net and Cleary stuffed it past Johan Hedberg, who had replaced Turco in the Stars’ crease earlier in the period.

As with the first Detroit goal, Dallas responded quickly, retying the game just 2:03 later. Again, Legace was caught out of position, this time during a delayed penalty. A Dallas shot bounced off the back boards and came to Antti Miettinen, who fired it into the net under a diving Legace.

Kris Draper scored his first goal of the night to give the Red Wings the lead again early in the third period. Just 5:05 into the game’s final frame, he took a pass from Kirk Maltby, kicked it from his skate to his stick, and wristed a shot past Hedberg from the right circle.

Draper scored again to put the game away with 7:45 remaining in the game, punching the rebound from a shot by Cleary between Hedberg’s pads.

The Red Wings also won the shootout, scoring twice while the Stars only managed one goal. Sergei Zubov beat Legace on his glove side in the opening round, while Draper was stopped by Hedberg’s left pad. Miettinen fired into Legace’s pads while Lang froze Hedberg and scored 5-hole in the second round. In the final round, Legace stopped Niko Kapanen while Cleary scored his third shootout goal in as many games, coralling a bouncing puck and putting it between Hedberg’s pads.

The Red Wings are off until Tuesday, when they travel to Colorado. They’ll be in Columbus on Wednesday and then have a home-and-home series with Toronto over the weekend before opening the regular season against St. Louis on October 5.

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Henrik Zetterberg did not play against Dallas as expected, he is now expected to return to play on Tuesday… Unsigned restricted free agent Pavel Datsyuk, who agreed to terms with the Red Wings last week, was expected to arrive in Detroit on Sunday night. He will meet with Red Wings general manager Ken Holland on Monday and practice with the team on Tuesday.