BOSTON _ The Detroit Red Wings buzzed for the first 10 minutes. Then it got ugly.
So ugly, it was farcical.
The Wings gifted the Boston Bruins goals galore Wednesday at TD Garden, making a hard night of it on both Detroit goaltenders. Jared Coreau was gone before the first period ended, a period that saw seven Wings skaters with at least a minus-2 rating next to their name. Petr Mrazek took over on what was supposed to be a night off for him after making seven straight starts.
After at least losing the previous three games by a close score, the Wings were routed, 6-1, wrapping up their road trip at 1-3-1 with their worst loss of the season. They remain mired at the bottom of the Eastern Conference with 17 games left to play in the regular season. The upside to their losing improves odds in the draft lottery.
Danny DeKeyser had a very bad night. Anthony Mantha quit on a play after turning the puck over. Dylan Larkin was minus-3 after the first period. And yet it looked at the start like the Wings were going to be OK.
For being the team that had played and travelled the night before, the Wings gained the offensive zone enough to run up a 6-2 edge in shots. Henrik Zetterberg set up a nice chance for Gustav Nyquist down low, but Nyquist shot wide. Unable to score, the Wings then got scored on in spades.
The Wings gave up the first goal for the third straight game when David Krejci bulldozed through DeKeyser and slipped a little forehand shot around Coreau's left leg, at 11:07. It got worse when Brad Marchand took off with DeKeyser giving chase and scored, at 12:08, giving Boston two goals on six shots. A rare defensive lapse by Zetterberg led to Drew Stafford scoring glove side on Coreau at 13:32, making it three goals in 2:25.
That was it for Coreau, but not for the Bruins. An amazing double turnover in their own zone _ first by Tomas Tatar in the right corner, then in the slot by Larkin _ led to Krejci scoring again with 14.9 seconds left in the first period. Shots were 15-7 to Boston.
Riley Sheahan _ still searching for his first goal _ tried for a wraparound early in the second period. Tatar fired a shot up the middle that Tuukka Rask caught as the Wings tried to chip away at the deficit, while the Bruins didn't much bother with Mrazek until a power play halfway through the period, when Mrazek came thorough with five straight saves.
An Andreas Athanasiou end-to-end rush ended with a backhand shot that Rask saved. When the puck hit the back of Rask's leg and lay loose in the paint, a Bruins player got to it first. Marchand made it to 5-0 at 16:55 after Mantha coughed up the puck in his own zone. Niklas Kronwall scored on a slap shot at 17:35 of the second period, but the Bruins reclaimed a heftier lead when David Pastrnak scored in the opening minute of the third period.
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