5
1
09/25/2013
FINAL
123T
PIT2215
0SHOTS0
26FACEOFFS26
23HITS18
13PIM13
2/3PP0/3
2GIVEAWAYS8
6TAKEAWAYS7
8BLOCKED SHOTS8
    

Kunitz scores twice as Penguins rout Red Wings

Thursday, 09.26.2013 / 12:28 AM

The Pittsburgh Penguins finished the preseason looking like a team that's tuned up and ready to hit the ice for the regular season.

The Penguins got two goals and an assist by Chris Kunitz on Wednesday night as they polished off the Detroit Red Wings 5-1 at Joe Louis Arena in their final preseason game. The next time the Penguins take the ice will be for real; they host the New Jersey Devils on Oct. 3 in their season-opener.

Jussi Jokinen, Pascal Dupuis and Craig Adams also scored, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin each contributed a pair of assists and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 16 shots as the Penguins dominated play, outshooting Detroit 37-17.

"This was a complete game in a lot of our areas," Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma said.

The Penguins dressed a lineup that was close to the one it will use next week and looked ready to go.

"We didn't have a great preseason leading up to this one," Kunitz said. "I think we played a little harder, we watched clips, we talked about what we need to do. Maybe just play better in our zone and come with our speed. It's something that we did on the first goal, [I] got the puck out and Sid made a great play picking it up on the wall and making that play to [Dupuis] and putting it in. so that kind of just led us off to have a good game tonight."

Drew Miller's goal 12:49 into the second period was the only shot to beat Fleury. Detroit rookie Petr Mrazek, who led the Red Wings' American Hockey League affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins, to the Calder Cup last spring, went all the way and made 32 saves for a team that sat star forwards Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg as well as defenseman Niklas Kronwall. All three are expected to play Friday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

"You have to have the puck more than we did if you're going to have any fun out there I'll tell you that," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. "They came in here with an NHL-looking team and we didn't have one. We still have to play so many games we have to spread out lineup out and we have so many guys hurt. We weren't deep enough; we didn't have the puck enough so that's what I took from it."

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