Wings blank Blues in 5-0 shutout despite Hossa injury

The Detroit Red Wings (42-14-8) completed their series sweep over the St. Louis Blues (28-27-8) on Tuesday night with a 5-0 shutout, which was Chris Osgood's first one this season and 48th of his career. In each of their four games against the Blues this season, Detroit scored four or more goals.

The scary part of the evening came when Marian Hossa crashed headfirst into the boards. He immediately clutched his neck and after a few minutes, he was taken off on a stretcher. Since Hossa had just returned from a neck injury, they wanted to be extra sure that they did not cause any more harm to him. He was thoroughly tested at the local hospital and appeared to be okay. Head coach Mike Babcock told FSDetroit after the game that he believes Hossa will travel with the team to Denver. He should likely stay out of the lineup as a precaution.

Just over halfway into the first period, Aaron Downey made his presence known in the lineup by fighting Cam Janssen. You can view the fight below and see how winded the two players were by the end of the longer-than-usual fight.

Tomas Kopecky scored his fifth goal of the season and third one in the past five games at 14:54 in the first period. His shorthanded marker was a beauty. After Pavel Datsyuk had stripped the puck from St. Louis on the Wings blue line and brought the puck up the ice, he fired a shot that seemingly bounced off a Blue and right to Kopecky who brought the puck towards the left side of the crease before making a nice move to his right and taking a nice backhanded shot beating goaltender Chris Mason. What was key about Kopecky's goal is that it came during a near six-minute stretch of Detroit penalties so the fact that the Wings were able to kill off those penalties and even score a shorthanded goal really gave Detroit the momentum.

Datsyuk would assist on the next Detroit goal as well, but this time on the man advantage. Johan Franzen and Datsyuk scrambled in front of the St. Louis net, trying to chip in the puck. It took Henrik Zetterberg to swoop in and bang the puck in 3:24 into the middle frame.

Detroit padded its lead just over four minutes later when Kris Draper tipped in a Kopecky backhander from the slot. In his first game with Detroit after being called up from Grand Rapids, defenseman Jonathan Ericsson earned an assist on the goal.

The Wings tallied their second power-play goal of the night at 10:54 in the third period. Niklas Kronwall scored his third goal of the season on a hard shot from the point. Jiri Hudler and Dan Cleary registered the helpers.

Valtteri Filppula scored the last goal of the game and his first marker in 19 games at 16:30. His last goal came against San Jose on Jan. 17. Kopecky earned his third point of the night -- and second assist -- on the goal. In the last five games, he has a 3-3-6 line. He's doing a good job impressing Babs with his play as he fights to stay in the lineup for the postseason. Brad Stuart also earned an assist.

Osgood stopped 22 shots in the shutout. After the season he's had and Saturday's debacle, the shutout win certainly had to feel good for Ozzie.

Christy's Red Wing of the Game: Tomas Kopecky

Tomas Kopecky

#82 / Right Wing / Detroit Red Wings

Height: 6-3

Weight: 200

Born: Feb 05, 1982

Detroit heads to Denver to take on the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. If the Wings can win a back-to-back game on Wednesday, I think us fans will feel a lot better about how they handled the 8-0 loss to Nashville on Saturday.