Red Wings find themselves back in a playoff position Detroit reclaims playoff spot with win

In Detroit, if you got the arena in the first intermission, you were in for a long boring 40 minutes.

The Red Wings scored three straight goals in the first to take a 3-0 lead over the visiting Buffalo Sabres on Sunday.

All within the first 7:37 of the game.

Tage Thompson hit off the power play at 13:16 of the first to cut the deficit to 3-1, but that was all the scoring in the game.

“We had a game plan, but they got one and we turned it into two, and we turned that into three,” Thompson said. “It was all self-inflicted wounds, and then we had to chase the game.”

Alex Lyon made 37 saves i the win.

“When the guys give you a start like that, you want to reward them,” he said. “I thought we did a good job of shutting down the game and making them 200 feet to get a chance.”

Detroit moved to 38-31-8.

“Finding a way to close out games like is difficult, especially against a team like that,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said. “I thought [Lyon] was our best player in the third period (17 saves). That team had some really good looks that he kept out of the net.”

With the win, the Red Wings displaced the Pittsburgh Penguins from the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.

The Sabres dropped to 37-36-5.

“You see a lot of games where you put that many pucks on the net and a bunch bounce in for you,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “There were a lot of pucks that the goaltender never saw and hit him. We had chances, but we needed one to go in.”

Detroit is five points clear of the Sabres for the second wild card.

“If you can’t win more than three games in a row, you probably aren’t going to make the playoffs,” Buffalo’s Alex Tuch said.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 21 saves in the loss.