Wings take advantage of power play to beat Oilers 4-2

EDMONTON, Alberta -- Both sides agreed the penalty was stupid, the Detroit Red Wings with delight, the Edmonton Oilers, with regret.

The Wings twice punished Benoit Pouliot for his decision to spear Jonathan Ericsson with 2:29 to go in regulation Tuesday, scoring a pair of power play goals to yield a 4-2 victory at Rexall Place.

Poiliot committed the act 195 feet from his own net, minutes after Jordan Eberle had used his second goal of the night to tie the game. Pouliot was contrite, saying, "I feel shame."

The Wings were unsympathetic.

"That wasn't very smart," Kyle Quincey said. "We can thank him for that one."

Justin Abdelkader said the Wings, "knew we wanted to attack right away, and not wait for overtime. That was huge for us."

It was Quincey who scored Detroit's first goal, leading them to a surge that saw them essentially take control of the game midway through the second period. Abdelkader, Pavel Datsyuk and Luke Glendening also scored with man advantages, as the Wings won the special teams battle three nights after losing it - and the game - in Vancouver.

"Special teams are very important, especially tight games like his," Henrik Zetterberg said. "I think we played OK. We did a lot of right things, got the puck deep, and eventually as the game went, the more chances we got. But we had a solid start and that's good."

The only negative was Tomas Jurco leaving the game with back spasms. Mike Babcock said Jurco won't play at Calgary.

The Wings had a couple of good looks on their first power play on stop number two on their swing through western Canada, but got in trouble late in the first period when Danny DeKeyser went to the penalty box for delay of game with Luke Glendening already warming the bench. That gave the Oilers 53 seconds with two extra skaters; the Wings survived that, but not the whole stretch, as Eberle snuck in a shot from the left side.

"I thought we had a tough break early in the game there when we shot it over the glass to give them the 5-on-3," coach Mike Babcock said. "Specialty teams are a big part every night - we lost the game in Vancouver because their specialty teams were better than ours were.

"I thought we were solid. The game is 2-2, and we've had the puck the majority of the night. And yet the game is 2-2 - that's just how the league is, that's how tight it is. You've got to find a way to win these games."

It helps to have guys willing to go to the net, like Gustav Nyquist on the Quincey goal, Abdelkader on his deflection goal, and again on Datsyuk's goal.

The Wings outshot the Oilers, 29-15, over the last 40 minutes, taking over the game even as Viktor Fasth did his best to hold them at bay. It was his work that meant a tie game when Eberle connected on a terrific setup by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins with 4:05 to go in regulation.

"It was tough," Abdelkader said, "because I thought we were taking it to them for the most part there. Obviously that power play was huge, getting that power play at the end, and getting the goal, the two points in regulation."

Datsyuk scored the game winning goal when he fired a shot on net that Matt Hendricks put into his own net, and Glendening found an empty net with three seconds to spare, sending the Wings off to Calgary for the last stop on the trip on a winning note.

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.