Eurolanche

Franzen's hat trick powers Wings

Among the key objectives Detroit much reach to get back to the top of the Western Conference standings is more consistency out of forward Johan “Mule” Franzen – and for the second straight game, the Red Wings got it.

Franzen scored a hat trick on Tuesday night at Joe Louis Arena to go with markers by Nicklas Lidstrom and Danny Cleary in the Red Wings’ 5-2 win against the Colorado Avalanche.

Rookie Gabriel Landeskog and Milan Hejduk scored for Colorado (7-7-1) – which lost on the road in regulation for just the second time this season.

Franzen now leads Detroit (7-5-1) in goals with eight, two ahead of the just-as-hot Lidstrom, and it should come as no surprise the Wings have won both games since the Mule – who had just three goals through the first 11 games – broke out with one goal and two assists on Saturday against the Anaheim Ducks.

Franzen, who scored five goals last February against Ottawa, has the talent to be one of the League’s supreme goal scorers. In fact, he usually finds himself at or near the top of Detroit’s stat sheet in that category every season. Still, he tends to run hot and cold. When he’s off, the Wings’ attack usually struggles noticeably – as was the case with their recent six-game winless skid.

When he’s hot, however, good luck keeping the puck out of the net.

It was actually Lidstrom who kicked off the scoring. He put Detroit up 1-0 midway through the first on an unassisted goal that he scored off a blast from the slot. After a puck battle behind the Colorado net, the puck kicked right out to the slot and settled down perfectly for Lidstrom – who always seems to be in the right place at the right time – to unleash a perfectly-placed slapshot that beat Avalance goalie Semyon Varlamov.

The first period brought little other excitement – each team killed off a power play and the Avs both outshot (10-8) and outhit (11-4), but Detroit still took that 1-0 lead into the first intermission.

The Wings pushed it to a 3-0 lead in the second on a pair of power-play goals by Franzen, the first scored at 2:36 of the period and the second a little more than four minutes later.

On the first one, Franzen tipped a one-time blast by Filppula from the top of the slot to beat Varlamov, who was caught out of position. Franzen then skated through the slot and redirected a shot by Kronwall past Varlamov for the second one, which prompted the Avs goalie’s exit in favor of Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

-by Associated Press-