DETROIT, Michigan -- Daniel Sedin scored twice Wednesday night, providing all of the offense needed to lift the Vancouver Canucks to a 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings.
Sedin opened the game's scoring at 6:31 of the second period when his attempted cross-crease pass bounced off the skate of countryman Nicklas Lidstrom and past Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard.
He notched another ay 9:29 of the third with Vancouver on the power play. Howard lost his stick in a scramble around his crease but still made a toe stop on Sedin's initial shot from the right faceoff circle. Henrik Sedin picked up the loose puck and sent it back to his brother, who lifted it over the sprawled Howard.
Jiri Hudler banged home the rebound of a Nicklas Lidstrom power play chance 2:09 later to pull the Red Wings to back within a goal but Detroit was unable to even things up.
Both teams finished the night one-for-three on the power play.
Howard stopped 31 of 33 shots faced while Vancouver's Roberto Luongo made 39 saves on 40 shots.
The Red Wings next host the Toronto Maple Leafs in the third game of their five-game homestand. They are 0-1-1 in the first two games of the stretch.
Notes: Detroit was without Pavel Datsyuk, Johan Franzen and Todd Bertuzzi... Jiri Hudler returned to the lineup... Jakub Kindl was the healthy scratch on defense.
I'm not even sure I should try to put together pre-game notes given how things have been changing today.
Joey MacDonald got sent back to GR yesterday with Chris Osgood scheduled to backup Jimmy Howard tonight. Then Osgood thought he might not be able to go, so the Red Wings signed Troy Passingham to an amateur tryout contract so he could be the backup, as Jan Mursak was called up when MacDonald went down and there isn't cap room for both. Then it turns out that Osgood is in worse shape than he thought, so now he's back on LTIR and MacDonald is on his way to Detroit again. But apparently it's possible that Passingham could still be on the bench if MacDonald doesn't make it in time.
Mursak is in because Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen and Jiri Hudler are still out, joined by Todd Bertuzzi. Hudler says he's ready to go tonight but Mike Babcock isn't so sure. All of these guys would play if it were the playoffs, we're told.
By the time the game starts, who knows what'll have happened?
Ooh, we get Ken and Mickey tonight. Hooray for non-exclusivity.
Well, I came in at 13:00 and that was a pretty damn fast 7 minutes of hockey. Wings need to keep that up.
I get the Vs feed over here.
Solid first period. PK looked good. Defense in general has been solid. A few good offensive shifts.
Not enough pressure on the Canucks. Wings caused that.
Damn, no chance to stop that. But Howard still cant control his bounces.
Jimmy coming up big this period, rebounding well from last game.
Definately missing the offense of Dats and Franzen tonight.
Need to solve RL here... running out of time.
And why can't we get some elevation on these break-away shots?
Draper had the chance to clear and didn't. That one's on him.
Nope. This game ain't gonna happen with this kind of effort.
We need a goal here.
And my wish was answered by none other than who? Hudler!
Golf clap.
Great job by Huds to get to the net and Cleary in front.
Wings looking good but running out of time.
Oh well. Played a good game but RL was too big. However, we were missing a big chunk of our offense. The past two games, the team has really been looking good. Just need more consistent goal tending and we'll be OK.
Lots of Wings fans complaining about the refs. I'm not thrilled with the officiating (that joke call with two seconds left had no outcome on the game but was an example of a double-standard) but go back to that second Vancouver goal. Yeah, lots of stuff that should have been called but the refs didn't stop Draper from clearing the puck.
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