The score helps make it look like a classic 1980s firewagon hockey special, but truth be told, this was a Wings butt whooping. The Kings came into tonight’s game ready to take over after the trade deadline after making arguably the day’s biggest splash acquiring scoring power forward Dustin Penner from Edmonton. What happens off the ice doesn’t always translate into success on it though as the Wings got ahead 7-1 in this game before the Kings made it look respectable in the final eight minutes, losing to Detroit 7-4.
Drew Miller scored two goals while Darren Helm and Jiri Hudler each had a goal and an assist for the Wings as they won this one going away snapping the Kings’ three game win streak. Jon Quick was chased from the game after giving up six goals and making 18 saves in his two and a half periods of work. Jonathan Bernier stopped two out of three shots he saw.
The Wings’ dominating performance was slightly derailed late in the third when Dustin Brown, Wayne Simmonds, and Brad Richardson added goals in the final eight minutes of the game to cut the Detroit lead to 7-4. Time eventually ran out though and Jimmy Howard closed the game with 35 saves. Richardson had a goal and an assist for L.A. while Anze Kopitar had two assists.
The loss for L.A. officially puts them in sixth place in the West. They’ve got as many points as Chicago with 74, but Chicago has the tiebreaker on them for the moment. For Detroit, the win makes them 2-0-0 on their five game road trip so far with a date against the Ducks coming up on Wednesday night.