Red Wings Win Again; Devils' Streak Ends

While the New Jersey Devils' points streak ended meekly, the Detroit Red Wings powered to their seventh straight win. <br/><br/>The Devils went home Monday night without a point for the first time

Tuesday, December 11th 2007, 7:19 am

By: News On 6

While the New Jersey Devils' points streak ended meekly, the Detroit Red Wings powered to their seventh straight win.

The Devils went home Monday night without a point for the first time in 11 games, losing 3-2 to the young Washington Capitals.

``Our second period was brutal,'' Devils coach Brent Sutter said. ``We had 18 brutal players in the second period. They left our goalie hung out.''

The Devils lost for the second consecutive night after winning nine straight. They earned one point Sunday during a 1-0 overtime defeat in New York against the Rangers. New Jersey hadn't been beaten in regulation since another 1-0 loss on Nov. 16 to the New York Islanders.

The Red Wings jumped out to an early lead behind goals from Tomas Kopecky and Valterri Filppula, and beat the Nashville Predators 2-1 with strong penalty killing.

``I actually thought we were really ready to play,'' Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. ``All in all, when you go through our lineup we had a lot of strong contributions against a good team. It was a good win for us.''

In other NHL games, it was: Boston 4, Buffalo 1; Anaheim 4, Columbus 3 in overtime; Toronto 6, Tampa Bay 1; Dallas 5, Edmonton 4 in overtime; and Los Angeles 4, Vancouver 2.

Washington's Jeff Schultz, who had just one goal in his first 59 NHL games, scored for the second straight game, and Quintin Laing _ playing just his eighth NHL game _ netted his first overall.

Bruce Boudreau coached both players at Hershey in the AHL, and was especially pleased for the 28-year-old Laing.

``That's a guy who's toiled for most of his life (in) the low minors,'' Washington's interim coach said. ``To score the winning goal in an important game for us, that's a really cool thing.''

Laing scored the final goal for the host Capitals, converting a rebound at 18:08 of the second period to make it 3-1.

Just 52 seconds into the third period, it appeared that New Jersey's Mike Mottau had scored, but after a review of several minutes, it was ruled that the puck had gone in the net off his skate.

Nicklas Backstrom scored a power-play goal for host Washington, and John Madden and David Clarkson scored for New Jersey.

At Nashville, the Red Wings started strong despite playing the night before in Carolina.

Kopecky opened the scoring 7:10 into the game, firing a one-timer from inside the right circle that found the net between goalie Dan Ellis and the left post.

Filppula was awarded a penalty shot after he was tripped by Jerred Smithson while he skated toward the net at 15:06 in the first. Ellis went low to block the shot, and Filppula shot it over the goalie for a 2-0 lead.

The Predators cut the Detroit lead to 2-1 with 24 seconds left in the second period on Martin Gelinas' short-handed goal.

Detroit, the only NHL squad with 20 or more wins (22), went 7-for-7 killing penalties.

``The No. 1 thing for us was our penalty kill was great,'' goalie Chris Osgood said. ``We got in a lot of shooting lanes and pushed them to the outside. Nashville tried a few cross-ice passes and we were there to deflect them away or get a stick on them. We did a good job with our sticks in blocking shots.''

Bruins 4, Sabres 1

At Buffalo, N.Y., Alex Auld made 44 saves, and Marc Savard had a goal and an assist to lift Boston to its second straight win since Auld was acquired from Phoenix on Thursday.

P.J. Axelsson, Peter Schaefer and Glen Metropolit also scored for the Bruins.

Jaroslav Spacek scored for Buffalo, which lost for the fourth time in six games.

Maple Leafs 6, Lightning 1

Jason Blake started a four-goal spurt in the second period, Chad Kilger scored twice and the Maple Leafs routed Tampa Bay.

Matt Stajan, Nik Antropov and captain Mats Sundin also scored for the Leafs, who play their next seven games on the road.

Michel Ouellet scored for the Lightning, who have an NHL-worst 2-11-1 road record.

Ducks 4, Blue Jackets 3, OT

At Columbus, Ohio, Chris Pronger scored a power-play goal with 1:45 left in overtime. The 14-year veteran earlier had an assist in his 900th career game.

Corey Perry had two power-play goals and Samuel Pahlsson scored on a penalty shot for Anaheim.

Rostislav Klesla and Nikolai Zherdev each had a power-play goal and an assist for Columbus. Kris Beech also scored.

Stars 5, Oilers 4, OT

At Dallas, Brenden Morrow's power-play goal in overtime lifted the Stars to the win.

Sergei Zubov scored and had three assists for Dallas. Mike Modano earned his 517th career goal, and Matt Niskanen and Mike Ribeiro also scored.

Rookie Sam Gagner, Dustin Penner, Tom Gilbert and Shawn Horcoff scored for the Oilers.

Kings 4, Canucks 2

At Los Angeles, Anze Kopitar scored the go-ahead goal and Jean-Sebastien Aubin made 26 saves for the Kings.

Derek Armstrong, Dustin Brown and defenseman Brad Stuart also scored for the Kings.

Taylor Pyatt and Alexander Edler scored power-play goals for the Canucks.

Curtis Sanford, who won all three of his previous starts for the Canucks, stopped 27 shots. He was a late replacement because Roberto Luongo ruled himself out during warmups because of a painful bruised rib.