Wings Down Columbus to Set Record Start

The Detroit Red Wings earned their ninth win in the first ten games of the season with a 6-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday. It marks the first time in the team’s 80-year history that they have started 9-1.

Like in Detroit’s 6-0 win at Columbus on Saturday, the Red Wings got into penalty trouble early, taking a penalty in the first minute of the game. Unlike on Saturday, they did not shake it off and the Blue Jackets scored the game’s first goal with Jiri Fischer in the box at 10:18.

Just four seconds into the power play, David Vyborny won an offensive-zone faceoff back to Todd Marchant at the right point. Marchant quickly got the puck to Bryan Berard, who moved into the high slot and fired a shot that deflected off a Red Wings’ skate and past Detroit goalie Manny Legace.

Detroit bounced back with 3:23 remaining in the first, as Brendan Shanahan banked a shot in off the back of Columbus netminder Marc Denis from behind the net.

The Red Wings took the lead on a goal by Pavel Datsyuk 7:38 into the second. Datsyuk batted the rebound of his first shot out of mid-air and past Denis.

He scored again on the power play just 1:40 later, putting in the rebound of a shot by Fischer.

Trevor Letowski cut Detroit’s lead to one with 8:22 left in the period but the Red Wings pulled further ahead after Columbus’ Steven Goertzen was sent to the box for a five-minute roughing penalty after riding Andreas Lilja into the boards on an icing call.

Shanahan scored his second of the night on a slap shot from the top of the right circle with 3:27 left in the second. Mathieu Schneider added another with 2:13 remaining while the Wings skated 5-on-3.

Henrik Zetterberg scored the third period’s only goal, skating around two Blue Jackets as he broke into the zone and then beating Denis with 8:08 left in the game. The goal was scored as the teams skated four aside after a scrum in front of the Detroit goal.

Legace stopped 31 of 33 shots against for Detroit while Columbus got the same number of saves on 37 shots from Denis.

The Red Wings went 3-for-9 on the power play. Columbus was 1-for-8.

Detroit will be in action next on Thursday as they begin a three-game series with the Chicago Blackhawks.