The Detroit Red Wings can equal their longest winning streak of the season when they visit the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday.
Detroit has won three straight, including a home-and-home set with Vancouver. The Red Wings had a four-game winning streak from Nov. 17-25.
All-Star Dylan Larkin scored two goals in each of the victories against the Canucks. Detroit won at home on Saturday afternoon 5-2, then rolled to a 6-1 win Monday on Vancouver’s home ice in the opener of a five-game trip.
“He’s an unbelievable player,” Detroit goaltender Ville Husso said of Larkin. “I had problems in practice with him, like he’s so sneaky on breakaways especially, and when he feels it, it’s kind of like he’s unstoppable. It was nice for him to get a couple of goals (Monday).”
Rookie Jonatan Berggren scored in the third period for his third goal in the last two games.
“It’s tough to beat anybody in this league two times in a row,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said. “And especially with the noon game (on Saturday), the travel, it’s a five-hour flight for us and we’ve basically been on a go for eight days in a row and we’ve had four long practices this week along with the three games. You don’t know what to expect and what our legs were but our guys responded extremely well. They were great from the get-go.”
Detroit also got contributions from players that hadn’t done much offensively. Gustav Lidstrom scored his first goal this season on a rebound. Robby Fabbri had a goal and an assist, his first multi-point game this season. Pius Suter ended an eight-game pointless streak with a goal.
“We’ve had trouble consistently scoring goals, so it was a big boost,” Lalonde said. “We had offense from a lot of different guys.”
Detroit’s last loss came against the Oilers on Feb. 7. Warren Foegele led Edmonton that night with two goals.
That was the first game after the All-Star break for both teams. Edmonton continued a four-game road trip by losing a shootout at Philadelphia, defeating Ottawa and losing to Montreal.
Sunday’s 6-2 defeat to the Canadiens was the Oilers’ most lopsided loss since a 7-2 thumping at Carolina on Nov. 10. It also ended an 11-game point streak.
“Bad start. We were not ready,” defenseman Vincent Desharnais said. “We don’t have any excuses. We just got to be ready. They were ready, they were in our faces, they blocked shots, we didn’t. They just played better.”
Montreal scored the first three goals of the game. Edmonton cut the deficit to 3-2 but the Canadiens scored a power play goal with 1:19 left in the period.
“I thought both teams got what they deserved (Sunday). Montreal played a very good game and credit to them, and I didn’t think we were very sharp at all,” Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft said. “We got what we deserved. We ended up getting behind the game and we made a push there in the second period which made it close, but in the end we didn’t get it done.”
The game on Wednesday will be the Oilers’ first on home ice since Jan. 28. They haven’t lost in regulation at home since Seattle defeated them 5-2 on Jan. 3.
–Field Level Media
