Red Wings a game away

Marian Hossa’s short-handed goal got the short-handed Detroit Red Wings started Sunday.

And once they got rolling, the defending champions overpowered the frustrated Chicago Blackhawks and moved to within one win of a return trip to the Stanley Cup finals.

With injured stars Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk sidelined, Hossa and Henrik Zetterberg had two goals each, sending the Red Wings to a 6-1 victory and a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference finals.

“We heard this morning during the pregame meal he [Lidstrom] was not playing. We just had to deal with it,” Zetterberg said. “Everybody had to step up and play.”

Game 5 is Wednesday in Detroit, where the Red Wings opened the series with a pair of wins.

Detroit took advantage of backup goalie Cristobal Huet, who made his first start of the playoffs in place of injured Nikolai Khabibulin. He gave up four goals and was pulled in the second. Rookie Corey Crawford took over for the last 15:55 of the period, but Huet returned in the third and allowed Zetterberg’s second power-play goal that made it 6-1.

“We tried to keep our poise. We knew they were coming,” Zetterberg said of the Blackhawks, who were upset after Detroit’s Niklas Kronwall hit Martin Havlat hard Friday and drove him out of the game. But “they didn’t basically have anything else to do once the game kind of ran away.”