Bertuzzi outscores the Bruins on the weekend--Wings 4 Bruins 2

After a 6-1 Detroit win in Boston, this game was a little more tightly contested. But Todd Bertuzzi's weekend kept getting better as he potted a pair of goals, just like he did on Friday.

Blake Wheeler opened the scoring just 1:29 into the game with a wraparound attempt that Jimmy Howard stopped originally, but Wheeler cleaned up his own rebound for his 11th of the season. Rookie Tyler Seguin get the assist on Wheeler's goal. Later in the first, Brad Marchand was skating back in the defensive zone with Todd Bertuzzi close on his heels. Marchand passed the puck back, thinking Bertuzzi was following him. However, Bertuzzi peeled off the other way and Marchand's pass went straight to Bertuzzi. Bertuzzi outwaited a Tim Thomas pokecheck and lifted a backhander past Thomas for his 11th of the season at 6:09.

With Kris Draper in the box for a light interference call off of a faceoff, Marchand atoned for his earlier turnover by putting the Bruins back up one. As Marchand went to the net, he got separation from Ruslan Salei and had an easy shot on a pass from Michael Ryder, giving the Bruins a 2-1 lead.

In the second period, Pavel Datsyuk scored his 14th of the season off of a rebound from Thomas. Thomas had come out of the crease to challenge a Brian Rafalski shot and a downed Bruin in front of him prevented him from getting over to top Datsyuk's shot. Kris Draper scored his 6th of the season off a great series of passes on the rush. Nicklas Lidstrom started the play out of the defensive zone and then Darren Helm got a pass to Patrick Eaves. With Draper rushing to the net with no defending and only Seguin defending him, Draper was in alone on Thomas and shot one to Thomas' stick side.

Henrik Zetterberg tipped a puck past Johnny Boychuck and Johan Franzen picked it up to rush up the ice with Bertuzzi joining him. Zdeno Chara was the lone man back and Franzen waited as long as possible before dishing it to Bertuzzi. Bertuzzi had slipped past Chara and then tapped the puck through the sliding Thomas' five-hole for a 4-2 lead.

Late in the game, the Red Wings survived a Boston powerplay and Bertuzzi closed out the night with a 1:30 shift, trying to get the hat trick goal.

The Red Wings play the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday in Tampa Bay.

• Great game out of everyone again. Yeah, there were a few times that were overall lapses in the play but it was a higher quality performance than we had seen against Nashville (X2) and Columbus.
• The line of Draper-Helm-Eaves was dynamite today. A lot of great chances by using their speed to get around defenders and to free pucks. Helm was 11 of 14 in the face-off dot and Eaves/Helm spent about 2:30 each on the PK.
• Johan Franzen has times during games he is absolutely dominating the game. He had a bad penalty late in the game but he also had moments where he was on a tear in the offensive zone. I also noticed him backchecking a lot in this game and I think that might be something that the coaching staff talked to him about.
• Let's move to the Bruins' division. That way Bertuzzi would have at least 12 goals against them. Think of playing the Canadiens and Maple Leafs 6 times each too. Okay, I really wouldn't want that. That's dumb.
• Justin Abdelkader had a great clearance on the late-game power play for the Bruins. Jimmy had stopped the first shot but was down and out on the rebound, but Gator knocked it out of the way before Denis Seindenberg could get there.
• Why did Jakub Kindl get 44 seconds of power play time but Jonathan Ericsson got 0?
• Jimmy Howard didn't have an incredibly tough game in net but was solid when necessary. Both goals were tough ones for him to stop on his own. Back to back games like this will help his confidence surely.