Canucks defeat Wings, 4-2

Last night, the Vancouver Canucks beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-2, at Joe Louis Arena. Matt Cooke, Henrik Sedin, and Anson Carter all scored for the Canucks. Richard Park scored on an empty net to finalize the Canucks' win. "It was in our grasp tonight, and I didn't come up with the big save," Legace said. In his first start of the season, Canucks goalie Alex Auld made 28 saves. Only Tomas Holmstrom and Mikael Samuelsson's shots got past him. "It's definitely nice to get in," Auld said. "I knew it would be a challenge against that team." Samuelsson notched his fourth goal in four games. His performance thus far is not what most predicted. When the Wings were scouting him, they took comments from current Swedes on the team who commended his hockey play. "He's playing great," defenseman Mathieu Schneider said. "The kid is doing everything really simple. (He) has a great shot and a lot of speed. That's what it is going to take to have great success in this new league." Unlike Sunday night when the Wings capitalized on five out of nine power plays, they went 0 for 6 on the power play. "We weren't efficient on the power play," Wings coach Mike Babcock said. "On the 5-on-3, we didn't do what we wanted at all. Part of that is them, and part of that is us." Babcock had more comments about the team's performance against the Canucks:

"We were in the game early, but I never thought at any time we were in control of the game. We didn't have our 'A' game. We weren't as hard to play against as we have been...To win night in and night out, your best guys have to be your best guys and I didn't think we had that. They were just a more desperate team...This was a tough back-to-back for us. We had an opportunity to really dig in here tonight. We didn't get it done. Now we'll go on the road here and play hard in LA... I didn't think we made it as hard on their goalie tonight as we made it on (Calgary goalie) Mr. (Miikka) Kiprusoff last night or on St. Louis. They had more puck possession. They were a more desperate team. The game is pretty simple. Comes down a lot of nights to who wants it more when the skill level is pretty much the same, and I thought tonight they did."