BOSTON -- A short but hard practice and a productive team meeting resulted in the kind of effort the Detroit Red Wings have been seeking for weeks.

The Red Wings made a strong statement with a 6-1 rout of the Boston Bruins at the TD Garden Friday, just two days after a performance players and coach Mike Babcock described as “embarrassing” and “ridiculous.”

The Red Wings got off to a strong start and were relentless against the team with the best goals-against average in the NHL.

Their top-six forwards, who had been unproductive of late, broke out in a big way.

Todd Bertuzzi scored two goals, the latter of which was his 700th career point. Henrik Zetterberg and Jiri Hudler each had a goal and two assists. Danny Cleary and Tomas Holmstrom each had a goal and an assist.

The team responded after being booed Wednesday in a 4-1 loss at home to the Nashville Predators, likely the low point of the season.

“There was a lot of pride involved,” Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom said. “The team really wanted to respond. It showed from the start of the game. We played with a lot more desperation and played the way we can, and kept it up for most of the game.

“You could tell when the puck dropped we wanted to score and we were going after pucks, getting pucks at the net, and guys were getting rewarded.”

Jimmy Howard, who was pulled in that loss to the Predators, made 25 saves for his NHL-leading 27th win.

“We hadn’t been playing Red Wing hockey for a while,” Howard said. “Sometimes you care so much you dig in a little too hard. We all needed to take a step back, relax a little bit. We had a great practice (Thursday), another great pregame skate this morning, so guys felt really good going into tonight.”

The Red Wings have been inconsistent for several weeks, particularly on defense. This time, Babcock took a more hands-on approach in trying to solve the issue.

“What I’ve done with this group over the years is, normally, I let them solve their own problems, let them take control,” Babcock said. “They normally do it all. Nick’s an unbelievable leader, (Kris) Draper, Zetterberg, (Pavel) Datsyuk. This is first time in a long time we actually talked about stuff like we did the other day. I thought they really responded.

“We think we got a good hockey team and we weren’t playing like a good hockey team. It doesn’t matter how talented you are, if you don’t work, you got no chance to be successful. We talked about it, said we can’t let this happen.”

Bruins backup goaltender Tuukka Rask had a rough night starting in place of Tim Thomas. He allowed five goals on 18 shots before being replaced by Thomas at the start of the third period.

Thomas is expected to start when these Original Six rivals complete their home-and-home series Sunday at Joe Louis Arena.

Leading 3-1, the Red Wings broke it open on goals by Zetterberg and Bertuzzi 24 seconds apart late in the second period. That was after Hudler had given his club some breathing room at 1:09 of the second period.

“We talked about it enough, we had to go out and start playing like we know how,” Bertuzzi said. “We know how crucial these points are. It seems like everyone in the West is winning right now and we were playing a very tough Boston team and we were ready.”

The Red Wings got off to the fast start they have been stressing for weeks, scoring on their first two shots to take a 2-0 lead less than four minutes into the game. Their 2-1 lead was the first time in eight games they have led after one period.

Bertuzzi opened the scoring at 1:10, blasting in a shot while on a two-on-one with Brian Rafalski. Cleary then scored at 3:10, driving to the net and converting a pass from Hudler.

David Krejci scored on the power play at 17:53 to cut Detroit’s lead to 2-1 and briefly make a game of it. But the Red Wings scored three times on seven shots in the second period.

The struggling power play went 2-for-6.

Babcock praised the effort from pretty much everyone down the line, a sharp contrast from his previous post-game address.

“Z’s group was real strong, I thought Pav’s group was strong — Pav’s starting to get his game back and him and Huds seem to have some chemistry,” Babcock said. “I thought Draper, (Darren) Helm and (Patrick) Eaves played real well, did everything right the whole game, and Abby’s (Justin Abdelkader’s) group had a good night, too.”