Red Wings 3, Blackhawks 2

Not a bad first win of the season for the Wings. PK looked much better, though still not perfect. Powerplay was good. Osgood was awesome in the first period, keeping Chicago off the board after they carried the majority of the play. He made the big saves that Detroit needed him to make, including a breakaway chance by Madden in the third. With a SV% of .941, he was the first star of the night.

Patrick Sharp got the Hawks on the board first with a goal at 1:23 of the second period. Detroit responded on the power play when Lidstrom's pass hit off of Madden's skate and went in the net at 10:36 of the second. Then at 16:15, Draper took a pass from Maltby and beat Huet top shelf to make it 2-1. Franzen made it 3-1 at 17:49 when he tapped Datsyuk's shot past the goal line, on the power play.

The third period got a bit scary as the Hawks out shot the Wings 15-4 and made it 3-2 at 10:24 with Versteeg scoring on the power play. Detroit was much lazier and sloppier in the third as they seemed to assume they had the game in the bag already. They've led by 2 goals in every game so far this year and have only one win, so that will need to be addressed.

Brad May fought Radek Smolenak and beat him pretty good. Way to make your presence known, Brad.

Speaking of Brad... Brad Stuart put a hurtin on quite a few Blackhawk players tonight, including Tomas Kopecky. I would say that he was Detroit's third star tonight. He was great on the PK, physical and disciplined.

Lebda sat out after taking a heavy hit in Sweden, giving Derek Meech his first action of the year. Meech was +1 in 11:20 of ice time.

Ericsson left the game in the third after blocking a shot with his ankle, again, so hopefully he's alright.

Williams was very good tonight, even on the power play. He was fast and created quite a few chances with his speed. I didn't care for his slash that led to the third period goal, but he had an assist on Lidstrom's goal.

Bertuzzi seems bored and lazy at times. He's huge, yet any contact against him and he falls to the ice and stays there lazily poking at the puck until it's too far away. I think he'll contribute as the year goes on, but he's going to have to look alive pretty soon.

Should be a good game on Saturday against the Caps!