Red Wings Streak Past the Avalanche

The Detroit Red Wings used a strong finish to make up for a weak start.

Tomas Holmstrom broke a tie with a power-play goal early in the third period, and Detroit beat the visiting Colorado Avalanche, 6-3, on Sunday in the teams’ last game before the Olympic break.

Detroit, which won its sixth straight, got a goal and two assists from Pavel Datsyuk and a goal and an assist from Holmstrom, Henrik Zetterberg, and Mathieu Schneider. Jason Williams and Brendan Shanahan also scored, and Nicklas Lidstrom had two assists.

The Red Wings, who trailed, 2-0, 10:04 into the game, completed a four-game sweep of its season series against the Avalanche.

“We didn’t get off to a great start tonight,” Shanahan said. “ ... But from the 10-minute mark of the first period for the rest of the game, we played a pretty strong 50 minutes.”

Dan Hinote had a goal and an assist for Colorado, and Patrice Brisebois and Milan Hejduk got the other goals.

San Jose 5, Phoenix 4 -- Tom Preissing scored a power-play goal with 3:04 left in overtime at Glendale, Ariz., to help the Sharks send the Coyotes to their fourth straight loss and sixth in their last seven games.

Steven Reinprecht sent it into overtime with 3:42 left in regulation with the Coyotes playing with an extra attacker while waiting for a delayed penalty to be called on San Jose. He took a shot that Vesa Toskala deflected behind the net, chased the rebound and bounced the puck in off Toskala.

Patrick Marleau had put the Sharks ahead, 4-3, just over two minutes earlier on a power-play blast from the high slot for his second goal of the game.

St. Louis 5, Edmonton 4 -- Dennis Wideman scored the only goal in the shootout, and Lee Stempniak added two goals in regulation to lead the Blues at Edmonton, Canada.

Keith Tkachuk and Jay McClement also scored for St. Louis, which improved to 5-1-1 since trading Doug Weight. Ryan Smyth scored twice for Edmonton, which has lost three in a row.

Carolina 4, Buffalo 3 -- Eric Staal scored in the sixth round of the shootout after goaltender Martin Gerber stopped the Sabres’ Jason Pominville in the Hurricanes’ victory at Raleigh, N.C.

It was Staal’s first goal in his second attempt in the NHL’s new tiebreaker, and the Hurricanes improved to 6-1 when the game goes beyond overtime. Niclas Wallin, Erik Cole and Justin Williams scored in regulation for Carolina.

Vancouver 3, Minnesota 2 -- Daniel Sedin scored 1:26 into overtime, lifting the Canucks at Vancouver, Canada.

Ryan Kesler and Bryan Allen also scored, and Alex Auld made 14 saves for the Canucks, who ended a two-game home losing streak to head into the Olympic break only two points behind Calgary atop the Northwest Division.