Red Wings take down punchless Flyers

Detroit, MI -- Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will be whatever positives that arise from Craig Berube's tenure as Flyers head coach.

Nonetheless, it was still painful to watch a new conference foe work that old black magic on their home ice.

Henrik Zetterberg tallied twice in the third period, as the Detroit Red Wings got past the Philadelphia by a 5-2 count on Saturday at Joe Louis Arena.

Pavel Datsyuk and Niklas Kronwall each posted a goal and two helpers for the Red Wings, who pumped in their first three power-play goals of the season and halted a two-game losing skid.

Old nemesis Daniel Alfredsson picked up three assists and Todd Bertuzzi added a score to back Jimmy Howard's 32-save performance.

"I thought we entered the zone pretty good, we moved the puck around quite a bit and most important thing, we shot the puck," Bertuzzi said.

Erik Gustafsson and Tye McGinn lit the lamp for the Flyers, who continued their early season slide with their fifth loss in six contests.

Ray Emery was victimized for all four goals on 29 shots in his second start of the year. His lone previous start was a 4-1 loss in Montreal one week ago.

Philadelphia, which has scored a franchise-low eight goals to start the season, received bad news at the outset. Club GM Paul Holmgren revealed that forward Scott Hartnell will miss 2-to-4 weeks with an upper-body injury and forward Vincent Lecavalier will be out one week with a lower-body issue.

The Orange and Black put together perhaps their toughest and most complete effort of the year, but still were unable to cash in when needed most.  

Down a goal and despite heavy pressure to start the third, the visitors couldn't get one past Howard.

On the same shift after two Flyers missed open nets, Braydon Coburn was sent off for holding and the Wings capitalized with their third power-play score of the contest on Datsyuk's backhander from the slot at 3:08.

McGinn made it a one-goal contest with 5:46 played, following up a Claude Giroux rebound and beating Howard from the left side.

Zetterberg, however, restored the Wings' two-goal edge by beating Emery with 6:12 remaining. He tallied once more inside the final minute of regulation into the empty net, as Emery was summoned to the bench for an extra attacker with more than two minutes to play.

"You don't ever want to get comfortable with losing," said Berube, who fell to 1-2 at the helm. "But we played a solid game, a lot of urgency. We were competitive, but it wasn't enough."

Only 24 seconds into their first power play, the Wings went up 1-0 as Bertuzzi wrapped the puck around the right post and in with 7:13 played in the opening period.

Kronwall's hard wrister from the left circle zipped under the crossbar and gave Detroit a 2-0 edge with 8:52 remaining in the second period and seconds to go on a Luke Schenn holding penalty.

But Philly climbed within a goal just 34 seconds later, when Gustafsson's knuckler from the point eluded Howard for the Swedish defenseman's first of the year.

Notes: The Flyers fell to 1-18-2 in Detroit, including two losses in the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals, since a 4-3 win on Nov. 4, 1988 ... To fill the roster spots, the Flyers recalled McGinn and Michael Raffl from Adirondack of the American Hockey League ... McGinn's score was his first in the NHL since February 12 at Winnipeg in a 3-2 Flyers win ... Gustafsson lit the lamp for the first time since April 16 in a 4-2 victory over the Rangers ... Kronwall's tally was his first since March 15 ... Prior to the contest, the Red Wings agreed to terms on a three-year, entry-level contract with first-round pick and forward Anthony Mantha ... Giroux's assist was his first point of the season ... Coming into the game, Emery had been 3-0 with a 1.85 goals-against average and .943 save percentage in four career games vs. Detroit.