Alex DeBrincat scored twice and had an assist and Patrick Kane added a goal and an assist to back a 26-save shutout from John Gibson and lift the Detroit Red Wings to a 4-0 victory over the host Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday.
Skating against their former team, DeBrincat and Kane scored in the opening 4:35 to stake the Red Wings to an early lead they wouldn’t relinquish
Chicago outshot Detroit 26-24 but struggled to solve Gibson while falling to 2-4-1 in its past seven games.
Blackhawks leading scorer Connor Bedard, whose 44 points ranked fourth in the league entering the night, didn’t play after sustaining an upper-body injury in the final seconds of Friday’s 3-2 loss in St. Louis.
Chicago coach Jeff Blashill didn’t have an update on Bedard before the game and said the club will “know more in the next couple days.”
The Blackhawks recalled forward Nick Lardis, their third-round selection in the 2023 NHL Draft, before the game. Lardis, who had 26 points in 24 games with Rockford of the American Hockey League, registered two shots and five hits in 15:32 of ice time.
Detroit took a 1-0 lead just 55 seconds into the game as DeBrincat tipped the puck past Chicago goaltender Arvid Soderblom on Andrew Copp’s feed from the right corner.
Kane, who tallied the secondary assist on the play, scored on a backhand off 2-on-1 with DeBrincat moments later as the duo capitalized on a Connor Murphy turnover.
Emmitt Finnie made it 3-0 at 14:23 of the second period when he scored on a rebound, and DeBrincat closed the scoring with an empty-net goal at 16:14 of the third.
Chicago recorded just six shots in the second period. Ilya Mikheyev had a shorthanded breakaway attempt with 3:30 to play in the period but fanned on the shot attempt.
Gibson improved to 5-0 with two shutouts in December. Lardis had a prime chance on a third-period power play but hit the crossbar.
Both teams were 0-for-3 on the power play. Soderblom stopped 20 shots.
Detroit earned a split of the season series, avenging a 5-1 home loss to the Blackhawks on Nov. 9.
Kane has 498 career goals.
–Field Level Media
