Red Wings trounce struggling Canucks
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA >> Dylan Larkin scored twice and the Detroit Red Wings beat the struggling Vancouver Canucks 6-1 Wednesday night for their third straight win.
Robby Fabbri and Gustav Lindstrom each had a goal and an assist, and Pius Suter and Jonatan Berggren also scored for the Red Wings. Michael Rasmussen had two assists and Ville Husso made 29 saves, including a late penalty shot.
It was the Red Wings’ second lopsided win in the last three days against the Canucks after winning 5-2 in Detroit on Saturday.
“It’s tough to beat anybody in this league two times in a row,” Detroit 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.”
Sheldon Dries scored for Vancouver and Collin Delia stopped 17 shots. The Canucks have given up five or more goals in 25 of 54 games this season.
The Canucks were awarded a penalty shot with 59.4 seconds left on the clock when Husso was called for delay of game when the net came down over his back as Elias Pettersson tried to jam a shot in from the side of the net.
Phillip Di Giuseppe skated in and sent a quick wrist shot off the goalie’s blocker.
Detroit took a 3-1 lead into the third period after Larkin scored twice in the first and Fabbri added to the cushion midway through the second.
The Red Wings piled on in the third, scoring three times in a 7:12 span.
Lindstrom made it a three-goal lead just 40 seconds into the period. Rasmussen got the puck at the side of the net, tried a wraparound shot before Lindstrom finally jammed the puck in for his first goal of the season.
Suter added to the lead at 5:19 when he blasted a shot past Delia from the low slot.
Berggren sealed it at 7:52 a he got a slick pass from Joe Veleno and tapped it in backdoor to make it 6-1 with his 11th.
“I think we’ve got to be better than what we showed in the third period,” Vancouver defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson said. “I thought we were in the game at one point there, 3-1, a shot away to be right back in it. And they came out and they (score), so we have to manage the game a little bit better in the third to kind of hang around a little bit and get our chances. But we couldn’t do that.”
Detroit was a perfect 1-for-1 with the man advantage while Vancouver went 0-for-4.