Zetterberg leads Red Wings past Blackhawks

Kevin Allen | USA TODAY Sports

CHICAGO - Henrik Zetterberg inherited his Detroit Red Wings captaincy from Nicklas Lidstrom, but Saturday, he led more like Steve Yzerman.

Zetterberg chipped in two assists and played a gritty, relentless overall game to lead the Red Wings to a 4-1 win against the Chicago Blackhawks that ties up the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal 1-1.

"Maybe sometimes it doesn't show as well, but he's doing the hard work every night for us," said Detroit defenseman Jonathan Ericsson. "When he gets points, it's good for us. But he is always doing the dirty work, too."

Zetterberg drove the puck into the Chicago zone and then dropped a pass into the slot for defenseman Brendan Smith to drive home what turned out to be the game-winning goal at 16:08 of the second period.

Smith said he was simply in the right place at the right time. "It was a Damien Brunner kind of goal," he said.

But Zetterberg had done the work on the goal, and had the vision to know where Smith was on the ice.

"(Zetterberg) is such a competitive player," said Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard, who was required to make only 19 saves in the game. "This time of year, he seems to step up his game."

Right before the Smith goal, Zetterberg had shoved Chicago captain Jonathan Toews and then pushed into to the ice with his stick.

Game 4 is Monday in Detroit.

"We know that we weren't good enough to win this game," Toews said. "Mostly we made a few mistakes on the rush. Giving up pucks in the wrong areas. Last game we played smarter defensively."

The Red Wings were badly outplayed for the final 40 minutes in Game 1, and the off day about how the Detroit top scorers needed to step up. Johan Franzen and Valtteri Filppula, who had one shot between them in Game 1, both scored in Game 2. Brunner had scored on a tip-in in the second period to tie the score 1-1.

Despite being shut out in Game 1, Zetterberg has three goals and six assists in his past five games.

"We just wanted to play a better game than we played in Game 1," Zetterberg said. 'They were a lot better than us then. They skated a lot more. We just wanted to prove to ourselves we could play a better game and we did."

The Blackhawks had defeated the Red Wings in all four regular-season meetings, and had beaten them eight times in a row in a stretch dating to last season.

"We were better throughout the whole game compared to where we were last game," said Ericsson, who assisted on Franzen's third-period goal. "We were good for 20 (minutes) then. Today we played well for 60."

Patrick Kane had scored, off an odd-man rush, at 14:05 of the first period to give Chicago a 1-0 lead.

"I liked our start," said Chicago coach Joel Quenneville. "I thought the first 10 minutes of the pace was probably as fast as at any point, but we didn't sustain it. We didn't do what we were hoping to do over the last 40 minutes."

The Red Wings have had trouble scoring in the third period and were the least productive 5-on-5 team left in the playoffs. But all four of their goals came at even strength in Game 2, and two were scored in the third period, when they held Chicago to seven shots.

"They have four elite, elite forwards," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. "They have lots of depth, but they have four all-world players and you can't give them much room."

Toews, Patrick Sharp, Marian Hossa and Kane combined for nine of Chicago's 20 shots.

"I think today was our best 60-minute effort of the playoffs, even including round one," Howard said. "I thought we did a great job of getting out of our zone efficiently."