Red Wings Explode into Regular Season, Blowout Leafs

Welcome back to Detroit, Mike Babcock.

The Red Wings may have taken a moment during the game to honor their former head coach, but Mike Babcock was given no further warmth by his old team as Detroit opened their season at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Justin Abdelkader posted a hat trick and 19 year old Dylan Larkin got his first goal and assist of his NHL career as the Wings pummeled Toronto by a score of 4-0.  Jimmy Howard, looking to return to form after a poor second half of last season, earned a 19-save shutout in the victory.

If you weren't able to watch this game, I hate to tell you this but you missed one of the most entertaining Red Wings games I've seen in a long, long time.  Detroit showed a passion and a hunger that I feel has been lacking for some time.  Now I do realize this is only the first game of a long season, but tonight showed us all what kind of potential this team has and what it is capable of.  Good play on the 5 on 5, the powerplay clicked, the penalty killers were perfect, very few miscues and turnovers all contributed to a dominant performance by the Wings.

I will admit that it was hard to appreciate the play of the entire team with how well the top line played, but no one really played badly for Detroit from top to bottom, and that might be the most exciting prospect of all that I gleaned from this evening's tilt.  Oh, and keep in mind, we're not even running Datsyuk or DeKeyser yet.  Yeah, this is gonna be a fun team to watch.

The Red Wings are back in action tomorrow against Carolina.  Petr Mrazek will get his first start of the season, and hopefully the team will carry this burst of momentum forward and keep the W's flowing.

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