Osgood Shines Early as Red Wings Double Up Thrashers

Detroit goalie Chris Osgood kept a shutout going for just over fifty minutes Friday night, finishing the night with 31 saves en route to a 6-3 win for the Red Wings over the Atlanta Thrashers.

Osgood stopped Rich Peverley twice and kept out a chance by Ilya Kovalchuk to keep the Thrashers off the board early.

“Osgood made some great saves in the first period,” Thrashers head coach John Anderson said. “Games change complexion when one team is down or us and if we had gotten up, it might have changed the way we played.”

Brian Rafalski scored the game’s first goal with 6:20 left in the first period, jumping up from the right point to snap a shot past Atlanta netminder Kari Lehtonen.

Pavel Datsyuk extended the Detroit lead just seconds after Kovalchuk failed to score, snapping a wrister from the left circle past Lehtonen on a rush with Johan Franzen.

Jiri Hudler made it 3-0 just two minutes later, scoring on a breakaway.

The teams traded third-period goals three times. Johan Franzen and Bryan Little each scored on the power play, then Marian Hossa and Vyacheslav Kozlov scored less than two minutes apart. Dan Cleary and Colin Stuart wrapped up the scoring.