Red Wings Remain Kings of the Road

Twenty-four hours after rolling over the Mighty Ducks, the Detroit Red Wings brought their traveling show to the Forum on Thursday night.

The defending Stanley Cup champions decided not to start top goaltender Chris Osgood against the Kings but backup goalie Kevin Hodson was good enough with 23 saves and the Red Wings received goals from Doug Brown, Brendan Shanahan, Mathieu Dandenault and Martin Lapointe in a 4-1 victory before an announced crowd of 12,120.

King Coach Larry Robinson remained winless against former coach Scotty Bowman. Bowman, who coached Robinson at Montreal, improved to 6-0-3 against his former all-star defenseman, but he sees an improvement with the Kings.

“They’re a better team,” said Bowman, whose team defeated Anaheim, 4-1, on Wednesday and extended its road winning streak to five games. “They’re much better defensively. They play like a team now. Larry’s got a system and they’re playing in it.”

Hodson, who improved to 2-0 for the season, was at his best whenever the Kings had one of their few solid scoring chances. Hodson’s best save was made midway in the third period with Detroit ahead, 2-1--a great stick save on a breakaway by Luc Robitaille.

The Kings, who play their best games against the NHL’s better teams, played on near-even terms with Detroit until the third period. That’s when the opportunistic Red Wings showed their greatness with three goals.

“We knew that the game was going to come down to 60 minutes of hockey,” said Robinson, whose team dropped to 3-5-3. “[You can’t let up] against a good club like this.”

With the score tied, 1-1, the Red Wings got going with their best power play of the game. King goaltender Stephane Fiset made four saves before Shanahan kept the puck in the King zone after a clearing attempt by Garry Galley. Shanahan then used a screen from Brown to score from outside the left circle at 4:50.

A few minutes later, Robitaille broke free and had a chance to tie the score but Hodson was able to poke the puck away. The Red Wings took a 3-1 lead when Dandenault outmaneuvered defenseman Mattias Norstrom and lifted the puck over Fiset for a goal at 9:35.

Detroit, 8-1-2, scored its final goal with 28 seconds left when Lapointe knocked in an empty-netter.

“We want to have a team like Detroit’s, but it is going to take time,” said Rob Blake, the lone remaining King from the team’s Stanley Cup final appearance in 1993. “The good thing is that I see the light at the end of the tunnel for the first time.”

The Kings got off to their usual non-scoring start. For the ninth time in 11 games, the Kings gave up the first goal of the game when Brown broke free less than two minutes into the opening period.

With Norstrom being the only King back on a two-on-one break, Brown took advantage of the open ice and whacked in a shot over the left shoulder of Fiset from the right circle at 1:47.

Blake scored a blue-line slap shot at 6:17 of the first period.