Red Wings draw first blood in Stanley Cup

DETROIT (Reuters) - The Detroit Red Wings drew first blood in the Stanley Cup final when Mikael Samuelsson scored two goals in a 4-0 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.

Taking advantage of their experience and tenacious defense, the Wings contained the explosive Penguins offense and Chris Osgood made 19 saves to give Detroit the opening game in the best-of-seven series.

"I thought we were nervous in the opening period but once we got skating and executing things went our way," Detroit coach Mike Babcock told reporters.

"When we got the tempo up and started skating we got our chances and made the most of them."

The series has been touted as a match-up between Detroit's experience versus Pittsburgh's talented youngsters Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

Crosby and Malkin were well contained and Detroit's scoring came from an unlikely source since Samuelsson has just 67 goals in 385 career NHL regular season games.

However, the 31-year-old Swede was the hero in front of a raucous hometown crowd at the Joe Louis Arena, helping the Wings take the series lead as they seek their fourth Stanley Cup in 11 years and first since 2002.

"I'm lucky to be the one that scored a couple of goals," Samuelsson told reporters. "The feeling was great for sure."

ASSUME CONTROL

Pittsburgh out-shot the Wings 12-11 in a scoreless first period, but Detroit took over in the second as they held the high-flying Penguins to just four shots on goal. Detroit out-shot Pittsburgh 36-19 overall.

"Definitely, that was our worst performance of the playoffs," Pittsburgh coach Michel Therrien said. "We didn't compete the way we we're supposed to compete. It's a good lesson."

Samuelsson opened the scoring at 13:01 of the middle period, skating into the zone from center and slipping a wraparound shot past Marc-Andre Fleury.

He made it 2-0 at 2:16 of the third period, firing a shot from the slot past Fleury to give the Red Wings a cushion.

Dan Cleary with a short-handed goal on a backhand at 17:18 and a powerplay marker from Henrik Zetterberg with 12 seconds left completed the scoring.

Osgood was called on to make several big saves in the opening period and was solid all night, earning chants of "Ozzie! Ozzie!" from the sell-out crowd in the final period.

Game Two is on Monday in Detroit.

(Writing by Roger Lajoie in Detroit, Editing by Ed Osmond)