Kariya stars in return over Red Wings
Last Updated: Friday, October 2, 2009 | 11:08 PM ET
CBC Sports
Paul Kariya celebrates one of his two goals for St. Louis in the season opener on Friday in Stockholm. (Niklas Larsson/Associated Press)Paul Kariya scored two goals, including what held up as the winner, to lift the St. Louis Blues to a 4-3 victory over the Detroit Red Wings in a division battle that took place in Stockholm.
Kariya scored two of three unanswered goals as the Blues fought back from a 3-1 deficit in a game that drew a sellout crowd of 13,850 at the Ericsson Globe Arena on Friday night.
"In the first half of the game, we weren't playing our game," said Kariya. "We started to get going in the second period, playing in their zone and getting the power play."
Kariya, 34, had not played a regular-season game since Nov. 5 due to a hip flexor injury that required surgery. He scored two goals for the entire span of what he played last season, a total of 11 games.
Jay McClement scored and added two assists for St. Louis in the season opener for both clubs, with B.J. Crombeen also scoring. Chris Mason finished with 31 saves in net.
Kirk Maltby had a short-handed goal and an assist for Detroit, with Jonathan Ericsson and Ville Leino also finding the mark. Chris Osgood stopped 19 shots.
Detroit was the favourite of the crowd, boasting Swedish-born stars like Nicklas Lidstrom and Henrik Zetterberg.
"We didn't really generate a whole lot," said Lidstrom. "It was fun to play at home before a sold-out crowd. But it would have been much more fun if we had won. We'll get another chance tomorrow."
Each team finished 1-for-4 on the power play, with Leino's goal on the man-advantage early in the second putting Detroit up 3-1.
But the Blues stormed back with three goals in just over five minutes in the middle period, with the winner coming when McClement pounced on a turnover at his own blue-line and sprung Kariya and T.J. Oshie for an odd-man rush.
The Red Wings fired nine shots on net in the third in a bid to tie the score, with another shot hitting the crossbar behind Mason.
Also marking a return for the Blues after a long injury absence was Erik Johnson. The defenceman, who suffered a freak knee injury before the beginning of the 2008-09 campaign at a golf course, played just over 16 minutes and finished a plus-2.
The clubs will play again in Stockholm on Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada (CBC, CBCSports.ca, 3 p.m. ET).
With files from The Associated Press
