Detroit lights up Blues in third

DETROIT -- The Detroit Red Wings needed a 3:14 span late in the third period to earn their fourth straight win.

Dan Cleary's second goal of the game broke a third-period tie and began a four-goal rally to lift the Red Wings past the St. Louis Blues 7-3 on Wednesday night.

Cleary also stretched his goal streak to six games and his points streak to a career-high eight games (eight goals, four assists for 12 points).

"I don't know how to explain it other than the line is playing good and I feel healthy and I feel good on the ice," Cleary said. "When I get the puck, I'm trying to shoot it on the net and good things will happen."

Drew Miller and Justin Abdelkader both had a goal and an assist, while Henrik Zetterberg, Brad Stuart and Tomas Holmstrom also scored for Detroit.

Brian Rafalski had three assists, Pavel Datsyuk two assists and Jimmy Howard made 33 saves.

"Kind of a strange game. Pretty tight and all of a sudden we score enough goals to put it out of reach," Stuart said. "Not our best game by any means."

Andy McDonald had a goal and two assists, Brad Boyes a goal and an assist and Brad Winchester also scored for St. Louis, which lost its fifth straight after a 9-1-2 start.

Jaroslav Halak stopped 24 shots.

"We did a lot of good things out there," Halak said. "Unfortunately, the last eight minutes ... I don't know what happened. ... Maybe we were tired."

The Blues have given up 28 goals in the five losses after only allowing 18 in their first 12 games.

"It's a tough question to answer," Halak said about the five-game losing streak. "If we knew the answer, we wouldn't be losing games."

Cleary one-timed Mike Modano's pass from behind the net past Halak at 12:26 for his second of the game and ninth of the season.

Zetterberg got his fifth goal of the season 46 seconds later.

"I thought we had a real good third period. It was great to see we could respond," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said.