-- After a fabulous three-game road trip with wins in Minnesota, Colorado and Dallas, the Red Wings have stumbled a bit at home.
Sunday night against one of the the top teams in the East, Philadelphia, the Wings let the Flyers dictate the tempo in the second period and suffered as a result. The Flyers scored all three of their goals in the second and held on in the third to win, 3-2. It was their first victory in Detroit since 1988.
This came after the Red Wings lost 4-3 in overtime to the New York Islanders on New Year's Eve.
"I just thought they were better than us basically for 40 minutes of the game," Wings coach Mike Babcock said. "We started fine, but I thought they were better.
"We were able to crank 'er up to another level in the third, for whatever reason. The bottom line is, you've gotta play 60 good ones and not 40 good ones or not 20 good ones."
The Wings are missing star center Pavel Datsyuk and his 12 goals and 27 assists because of a broken hand, and Danny Cleary and his 16 goals and 10 assists because of a broken ankle. Both are also key penalty killers.
Henrik Zetterberg, who had one of the Wings' two goals, said someone would have to step up on the upcoming five-game road trip.
I would like to nominate Valtteri Filppula.
Filppula scored the first goal for the Wings Sunday when he flew into the Flyers' zone, received a nice pass from Johan Franzen and shot the puck past Brian Boucher's glove from the right circle.
"It was a great shot," Nick Lidstrom said. "He's coming with a lot of speed, made a great move before he shot the puck.
