The Detroit Red Wings finally broke through on the power play.
Henrik Zetterberg had two goals and an assist, and Pavel Datsyuk and Niklas Kronwall each had a goal and two assists to lead Detroit in a 5-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday night.
Todd Bertuzzi also scored for Detroit, which had three power-play goals to snap its 0-for-10 season-opening man-advantage skid. Daniel Alfredsson had three assists and Jimmy Howard made 32 saves.
Bertuzzi opened the scoring, with the Red Wings' first power-play goal of the season, 7:13 into the game. He put a wrap-around effort past Emery for Bertuzzi's first goal, just 24 seconds after Michael Raffl went off for hooking.
"That was huge. We got one, Bert just got it done on his own, I think it loosened the guys up and after that we were able to move the puck and get pucks back," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. "So that was a real positive thing for us. You need your scorers to score to win games. But they got to get their confidence and in order to do that you got to score a little bit so this should be a good thing for us."
Babcock moved Bertuzzi up to the first line for the game along with Datsyuk and Zetterberg.
"I thought we entered the zone pretty good, we moved the puck around quite a bit and most important thing, we shot the puck," Bertuzzi said. "We got the puck to the net and we had traffic around there and we had some good plays, that was the key, moving it and getting as many shots as we can."
Erik Gustafsson and Tye McGinn scored for Philadelphia and Ray Emery stopped 25 shots. Flyers interim coach Craig Berube dropped to 1-2 since replacing the fired Peter Laviolette on Monday.
"You don't ever want to get comfortable with losing," Berube said. "But we played a solid game, a lot of urgency. We were competitive, but it wasn't enough."
Kronwall's power-play goal with 8:52 left in the second period gave Detroit a 2-0 lead. Kronwall's first goal of the season came on a wrist shot from the left circle.
Gustafsson put Philadelphia on the board just 34 seconds later when his floating wrist shot from the right point bounced in front of Howard and found its way into the net.
"I just kind of threw it at the net and it was almost there and I got the good bounce," Gustafsson said.
Datsyuk restored the two-goal lead with his power-play goal 3:08 into the third period, beating Emery with a backhand shot from the slot that was screened by Bertuzzi.
McGinn made it 3-2 with his first NHL goal, 2:38 later. He backhanded a rebound in from the slot after being called up from the minors earlier in the day.
Zetterberg scored with 6:12 remaining and added an empty-netter in the final minute.
NOTES: Flyers C Vincent Lecavalier (lower body) and LW Scott Hartnell (upper body) both were out after being injured in Friday night's 2-1 loss to Phoenix. Philadelphia GM Paul Holmgren said Hartnell is out two to four weeks and Lecavalier will miss a week. ... Philadelphia recalled LW Raffl and LW Tye McGinn from Adirondack of the AHL on Saturday. ... Detroit D Brendan Smith was a healthy scratch and was replaced by Brian Lashoff in the lineup. RW Jordin Tootoo made his season debut (he began the season on IR due to a shoulder injury). He was on the fourth line along with C Luke Glendening, who made his NHL debut after being recalled from the Grand Rapids of the AHL. Red Wings coach Mike Babcock also shook up his other lines after two losses in which Detroit played poorly. ... Detroit signed F Anthony Mantha, it's first-round pick in the 2013 NHL Draft, to a three-year entry-level contract. Mantha is with Val d'Or of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
