Red Wings 9, Blue Jackets 1

Wings score early, often in romp

Dana Wakiji / The Detroit News

Columbus, Ohio -- The Red Wings played spoiler in Columbus coach Ken Hitchcock's 1,000th NHL game.

Niklas Kronwall scored twice on the power play, Justin Abdelkader had two third-period goals and Danny Cleary, Pavel Datsyuk, Kris Draper, Todd Bertuzzi and Ville Leino also scored as the Red Wings trounced the Blue Jackets, 9-1, Wednesday night at Nationwide Arena.

The last time the Wings scored nine goals was October 11, 2006, in a 9-2 home win over the Phoenix Coyotes.

The Wings jumped out quickly with Cleary's goal just 1:05 into the game. Datsyuk followed less than two minutes later and Draper made it 3-0 at 7:31.

Columbus goaltender Steve Mason was pulled after the third goal in favor of Mathieu Garon, but returned to start the second period.

"We wanted to come out with a good start, a good push in the first 10 minutes," said Nicklas Lidstrom, who extended his assist streak to three games.

"We were looking at it as they were the team to beat in our division. They're on top of our division so we're looking at playing well against the top teams. I thought the whole team really responded well tonight from the get-go."

Detroit was embarrassed after its 5-1 loss in Toronto last Saturday and determined not to let that happen again.

"We got off to a good start," coach Mike Babcock said. "We weren't very happy, obviously, with our last game and I thought our guys, we played with good structure tonight and got started. We had some good puck luck around their net, which is important. Things turned out well for us."

Hitchcock was not thrilled with his team's performance.

"We really got schooled today," he said.

"We got schooled by a hungry team that got beat, 5-1, the last game and they were ready to play and we weren't. It's an opportunity lost because it's a division game and because of the way we played. We didn't play committed or hard against a genuine opponent. It's disappointment in the attitude towards the competition."

Detroit (8-5-3) now has 19 points, just one shy of Columbus' 20. Chicago won, 3-2, in a shootout over Colorado to take the sole lead in the Central Division with 22 points.

Aside from the good start, the Wings also got solid defensive play and helped out young goaltender Jimmy Howard, who made 25 saves.

Howard allowed only a second-period goal to Rick Nash, the Blue Jackets' leading scorer.

Nash has 22 goals and 16 assists in 39 games against the Wings.

"I felt pretty good," Howard said. "I think there's still room for improvement out there, but for the most part I was seeing the puck really well and I wasn't trying to do too much or try and be perfect. I was just out there playing and having fun."

Also having fun was Leino, who got his first goal in 11 games and first with new linemates Zetterberg and Cleary.

"Obviously it's good to have some success and score a goal," Leino said. "It gives you more confidence and I felt good playing with those guys, I know what they're doing and obviously they're really good players."

Zetterberg assisted on goals by both Cleary and Leino.

Power play gets results

After going 1-for-18 on the power play in the last five games, the Red Wings got two power-play goals against the Blue Jackets, both from Kronwall.

"I thought the power play was good tonight," Babcock said.

"We actually thought our power play was pretty good in Toronto, but (goaltender Jonas) Gustavsson was up to the challenge. Sometimes when you're just focused totally on goals, sometimes some of the good things you do go unnoticed. Tonight we were rewarded, but Kronwall shot the puck real well."

dwakiji@detnews.com