Detroit reasserts itself

ANAHEIM, Ca – After being pushed around for three straight games, the Detroit Red Wings broke out their “A” game and buried the Anaheim Ducks 6-3 to even the series at two games apiece.  In doing so, the Wings shook off two straight losses including the triple overtime game in Detroit and the 2-1 loss on Tuesday night. Trailing in the series 2-1, the Wings found themselves down early 1-0 on a goal from Corey Perry in the first minute of the game.  Perry picked up a long outlet pass from Chris Pronger and rattled the post and crossbar on the goal over Chris Osgood’s right shoulder. For the remainder of the first period, it was the Johan Franzen show as the forward picked up two goals in the period to give the Wings a rare lead in this series. The first period was the beginning of a long night for Jonas Hiller in the Ducks’ bet.  Hiller was victimized by deflections and his own bad goaltending.  The Red Wings were able to score through Hiller for most of the night as the goaltender was unable to gain a handle on many of the Red Wings’ otherwise easy shots. Hiller’s performance was concern enough for the Ducks to pull the young netminder after Mikael Samuelsson’s goal early in the final period.  Jean-Sebastien Giguere entered the game and managed to give some solid mop-up effort in the loss.

The last glimmer of hope for the Ducks in this game was Perry’s second of the contest mid-way through the second frame. Marian Hossa put an end to the Anaheim threat with two goals that seemed to baffle Hiller and were the real instigators for the rookie’s departure the third. Scott Neidermayer scored late in the third to excite the crowd but not the bench.  The Red Wings were in complete control at that point and rolling to the series-tying win. The series now switches back to Detroit where Game 5 will give one team the edge in the effectively a best-of-three series. Contact lou.lafrado@prohockeynews.com
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