Detroit — All that work the Red Wings put into the power play the last few days, simply all the intensity and physical play they put into practice, proved to be beneficial.
The Wings scored twice on the power play Thursday and successfully took everything from practice into the game, leading to a 6-3 victory over Anaheim at Little Caesars Arena.
Moritz Seider and Alex DeBrincat had the power-play goals. DeBrincat, who screened Anaheim goaltender Lukas Dostal on Seider’s goal, gave the Wings a 4-2 lead just 50 seconds into the third period, deflecting Seider’s shot from the point.
“It helps a lot when you get some rest and you can work on some things you wouldn’t normally work on,” DeBrincat said of having three days and two intense practices between games. “For us this week it was getting into the goalie’s eyes and get to the front of the net and working hard there. We did a good job of that. We have to keep that up and make it harder on their goalies.”
The Wings were 2-for-4 on the power play — they entered the game with one power-play goal in their last 20 chances — while killing all three Anaheim power plays.
“That’s what you hope,” said coach Todd McLellan, of watching the Wings take what they learned in practice. “We scored some goals, just simple, hard playoff type of goals really when you think about it. Hard goals, feeder shots that got to the net. You have to battle and the other way, some of their feeder shots we were scrambling in front of our nets and stepped into some things.
“It’s rewarding but you can’t just take the lesson one day and forget about it next week. The lessons are supposed to stay with us now.”
BOX SCORE: Red Wings 6, Ducks 3
Anaheim’s Mikael Granlund cut the Wings’ lead to 4-3 with his third goal, a deflection past goaltender Cam Talbot at the 4:33 mark.
But Dylan Larkin swiped a puck at the blue line and on a 2-on-0 rush with Lucas Raymond, scored his 10th goal at the 5:06 mark to restore the Wings’ two-goal lead, 5-3. DeBrincat added his second goal, and sixth of the season, on an empty-netter to make it 6-3.
“We talked about resiliency being a factor in our group, and it wasn’t there coming home from the road trip the first two games,” McLellan said. “But tonight, you get punched and you want to throw a jab quickly back at them and stay on your feet, and we did that.”
The Wings responded well from the training camp-style practices earlier in the week.
“It was a little bit of a wake-up call,” Seider said. “As we all know, Todd is very demanding and very detailed and maybe it was exactly what we needed to get back on track.”
The Wings (10-7-0) ended a three-game losing streak, while Anaheim (11-5-1) lost its second consecutive game to begin a road trip.
“It alleviates some misery because it’s been miserable the last few days and it should be,” McLellan said of the victory. “We expect more from each other and staff included. It alleviates the misery for a while but we have to get back on the ice (Friday) and we have a tough weekend coming up.
“But the lesson and the test, don’t forget the content. Let’s keep the content and not have to do what we did the last two days. Let’s advance our team.”
Seider (power play, second goal), Michael Rasmussen (second goal) and Axel Sandin-Pellikka (second goal) had second-period Red Wings goals. Cutter Gauthier (12th goal) and Chris Kreider (10th goal) answered for Anaheim in the high-scoring middle period.
McLellan singled out Rasmussen, who has been a healthy scratch in recent games, as having a particularly good night.
“Ras played the best game of his season for a lot of different reasons,” McLellan said. “He looked confident and big and strong and held on to the pucks and was physical. For him, that’s a real big confidence booster. We need that going forward, night after night, because he can play that way and he’s a pretty effective player when he does that.”
Talbot replaced goaltender John Gibson after two periods. Gibson was tripped up in his net with 40 seconds left in the second period by Anaheim’s Beckett Sennecke and immediately appeared to be favoring, and flexing, his lower body.
Gibson also took a couple of shots in his mask during the game. He stopped 15 of 17 shots, including all 10 he saw in the first period in what was one of his best periods as a Wing.
McLellan said Gibson will be reevaluated in the morning. If Gibson is unable to practice and play, it’s likely Sebastian Cossa would be recalled from Grand Rapids.
tkulfan@detroitnews.com
@tkulfan
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