Wings fall to Canucks

Wings fall to Canucks

Published Jan. 4, 2015 1:17 a.m. ET

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- Ryan Miller made 29 saves, Henrik Sedin scored two empty-netters to pass 200 goals for his career and the Vancouver Canucks beat the Detroit Red Wings 4-1 Saturday night.

Alexander Edler and Radim Vrbata scored on the power play for Vancouver (22-12-3), which bounced back with a solid effort after being outplayed in a 3-2 loss the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday.

Sedin's two goals gave him 201 for his career. He also had up an assist.

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Tomas Tatar scored for Detroit (20-10-9), which got 20 stops from Jimmy Howard.

The Canucks talked a lot about consistency in the wake of the loss to the Kings -- a game in which they were outshot 40-16 -- that came on the heels of a hard-fought 3-1 road win over the San Jose Sharks.

Vancouver was much better defensively on this night and grabbed the lead against the league's No. 2 penalty-killing unit 1:48 into the second when Edler blasted a one-timer from the top of the face-off circle past a screened Howard.

All four of Edler's goals this season have come on the power play and Saturday's was the defenseman's first in nearly two months.

The Red Wings started to push back as the period wore on, with Miller -- who came in with a career 2-10-2 mark against Detroit -- stopping a couple chances from Pavel Datsyuk, including a nice glove save on a redirection off the rush.

Detroit got a power play early in the third, and Miller made two more big stops on Datsyuk that had fans at Rogers Arena chanting "Miller! Miller!"

Detroit got a brief 5-on-3 advantage when Daniel Sedin went off for hooking and Miller made two more big saves on Stephen Weiss toward then end of the second penalty with his team still down a man.

The Canucks then put the game away on another power play at 9:11 when Vrbata buried his own rebound past a down-and-out Howard for his 16th of the season and third in as many games.

Vancouver gave up two late goals in Thursday's loss, and Tatar made the Canucks sweat when he buried his 16th of the season with 3:30 to go in the third and Howard on the bench for an extra attacker.

But the Canucks sealed it when Henrik Sedin scored his seventh of the season into an empty net for his milestone goal with 1:51 left on the clock. He added another with 31.2 seconds remaining.

NOTES: Edler picked up an assist on Sedin's first empty-net goal. ... Drew Miller was 7-1-0 in NHL games against his sibling prior to Saturday, including Detroit's 5-3 win over the Canucks on Nov. 30. ... Canucks forward Zack Kassian suited up for the first time since Nov. 25. The 23-year-old missed 13 games with a broken finger before sitting out one more as a healthy scratch on Thursday. Kassian took the place of Linden Vey, who has just two assists in the last 12 games. ... Canucks tough guy Tom Sestito cleared waivers and has been assigned to the AHL's Utica Comets. ... The Canucks continue their five-game homestand on Tuesday against the New York Islanders. ... The Red Wings opened a six-game road trip with just their second game outside the Eastern time zone in 2014-15. Detroit visits the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday.

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