U.S. Olympian Ryan Kesler enjoyed a triumphant return home.
Kesler scored twice and gold-medal winning Canadian goalie Roberto Luongo made 28 saves to help the Vancouver Canucks beat the Detroit Red Wings 6-3 on Wednesday night.
Alex Burrows, Kyle Wellwood, Sami Salo and Mikael Samuelsson also scored, and Henrik and Daniel Sedin each had three assists.
Kesler is from the Detroit suburb of Livonia.
``It was special. I always cherish playing in front of friends and family,'' said Kesler, who won a silver medal for the United States.
It was Luongo's first game in net for Vancouver after Canada's 3-2 overtime victory over the United States on Sunday.
``I felt great coming in,'' Luongo said. ``I had a great practice yesterday.''
Jason Williams, Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen scored for Detroit. Jimmy Howard made 17 saves before being pulled in favor of Chris Osgood midway through the second period. Osgood stopped 10 shots.
``We were poor. We were poor in goal. We were poor in the back end. We were poor up front. We were poor in the work ethic department,'' Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. ``The bottom line was we didn't look like a team that was dying to be in the playoffs tonight in anyway or shape of form.''
Wellwood's breakaway goal 7:11 into the second period and gave the Canucks a 3-2 lead. He beat Howard high on the glove side after taking a long pass from Aaron Rome.
``I just got the puck, turned and headed to the net as fast as possible,'' Wellwood said. ``And there were no Wings around.''
Salo's power-play goal with 8:27 left in the second made it 4-2. His screened wrist shot from the left point sent Howard to the bench.
Samuelsson scored his 22nd goal to make it 5-2, with 2:10 left in the second.
Kesler got his second goal, on the power play, and 18th of the season 6:35 into the third period.
Franzen scored on a power play with 4:47 left.
Zetterberg tied it at 2, for Detroit 1:47 into the second period with his 200th career goal. It was Zetterberg's 17th of the season.
``We gave the puck away way too much,'' he said. ``I don't think it was effort. It was just too many mistakes.''
Kesler opened the scoring 3:34 into the game, and Williams tied it with 5:50 left in the period. Burrows restored Vancouver's lead just 1:30 later when he deflected Daniel Sedin's pass out of the air and over Howard's shoulder. Burrows has 28 goals.
NOTE: Vancouver made three deals before the trading deadline Wednesday. The Canucks acquired D Andrew Alberts from Carolina for a third-round pick this year, picked up C Yan Stastny from St. Louis in an exchange of minor leaguers for Pierre-Cedric Labrie and sent D Mathieu Schneider, who was playing with the Canucks' AHL affiliate in Manitoba, to Phoenix for a conditional sixth-round pick and minor league D Sean Zimmerman. ... Detroit acquired RW Riley Armstrong from the Calgary Flames in exchange for D Andy Delmore. Armstrong was with Abbotsford of the AHL and Delmore with Grand Rapids of the AHL. The Red Wings also traded F Kris Newbury, who has played most of the season with Grand Rapids, to the New York Rangers for F Jordan Owens, who was with Hartford of the AHL. ... Both team's medal winners from the Vancouver Olympics were recognized before the game. Salo and Detroit's Valtteri Filppula won bronze medals with Finland, Kesler and the Red Wings' Brian Rafalski won silver medals with the United States, and Luongo won a gold medal with Canada. Red Wings coach Mike Babcock, who coached Canada, vice president Steve Yzerman (Canada's managing director) and general manager Ken Holland (Canada's associate director) also were recognized.
