Thursday, October 26, 2006


Red Wings take bite out of Sharks

Red Wings forward Jason Williams, left, skates around Sharks defenseman Christian Ehrhoff.
DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Red Wings are still waiting for their offense to get going.
Robert Lang's third-period goal broke a tie and lifted the Red Wings to a 2-1 win over the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday night.
GAME REPORT: Red Wings 2, Sharks 1
Detroit (4-4-1), which ended a three-game losing streak, also got a goal and an assist from Mathieu Schneider. Dominik Hasek made 22 saves, including a tip attempt and rebound by Steve Bernier with 37 seconds left and a backhander by Milan Michalek from in close with 30.2 seconds left.
The Red Wings had only scored three goals in the three losses.
"When you start to press, it's not easy," said Detroit coach Mike Babcock. "It was nice to see the guys have some success."
Bernier scored the lone goal for San Jose (7-3-0).
Lang broke a 1-1 tie with 8:58 remaining by tipping in a shot from the right point by Schneider for his third goal of the season. Schneider one-timed a pass from the left point by Lebda and Lang, left all alone in front of the net, tipped it in.
"It was just one of those things where he (Schneider) made a really good play at the right time," said Lang.
Schneider's power-play goal 38 seconds into the third period tied the game at 1. Schneider beat Evgeni Nabokov, who was being screened by Tomas Holmstrom, with a one-time slap shot from the top of the right circle that was a knuckleball.
"(The puck) just went end over end off the top of the toe of the blade of my stick," said Schneider. "One of those flukey goals, but I'll take it."
Detroit has also struggled on the power play this season. The Red Wings have had one of the game's most potent power plays in recent years, but came into the game ranked 29th out of the 30 NHL teams with a 4-for-46 (8.7) percent. They were 1-for-4 on Wednesday night.
The Sharks, who came in with the NHL's top power play, beat the Red Wings 5-1 last Thursday night with five power-play goals.
Nabokov finished with 21 saves.
The Red Wings had a 39-23 shots advantage for the game.
"We didn't work. Our forwards looked like they were auditioning for the Ice Capades," said San Jose coach Ron Wilson. "A bunch of guys looked like they were just waiting for a power play. "
Despite being outshot 14-4, San Jose led 1-0 after one period.
The Sharks took advantage of Johan Franzen's interference penalty late in the first period with Bernier's power-play goal with 2:50 left in the opening period. He beat Hasek with a one-timer from the bottom of the left circle off a pass from Milan Michalek. It was Bernier's third goal.
"If we would have maybe matched their intensity," said San Jose's Patrick Marleau. "There would have been a different outcome."

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