Vyacheslav Kozlov scored two goals for the second straight game as the Detroit Red Wings completed their four-game sweep of the San Jose Sharks with a 6-2 win Saturday night.
The Red Wings will face the Chicago Blackhawks, who wrapped up their series sweep of Vancouver on Saturday, in the Western Conference finals. Detroit, which has not won the Stanley Cup in 40 years, will be seeking its first spot in the Stanley Cup finals since 1966.The conference finals will begin Saturday in Detroit.
Paul Coffey scored Detroit's first goal, becoming the highest-scoring defenseman in NHL playoff history. He later added an assist and now has 166 points, two more than Denis Potvin, to rank seventh overall on the career scoring list.
"It just proves when you play with great players and make the playoffs enough, sometimes good things happen," Coffey said. "Denis Potvin was a great player and any time you're mentioned in the same breath it's definitely an honor for me."
Detroit captain Steve Yzerman twisted his right knee late in the second period and had to be helped off the ice.
Doug Brown, Bob Errey and Darren McCarty also scored for Detroit, which took an early lead with four goals in a 4:33 span in the opening period. That's the fastest four goals in Detroit playoff history, beating the mark of 4:46 set in 1939.
Errey's goal, the fifth for Detroit, was a deflection that went in off his helmet.
"I think it's going to be a fabulous series. I don't think any hockey fan could ask for anything more than a Detroit-Chicago playoff," Coffey said. "They've got a great hockey club, very well-coached, very disciplined. We're going to have to be at our best to keep up with them."
The Sharks, outscored 24-6 and outshot 147-61 in the series, got second-period goals from Ray Whitney and Mike Rathje. It was Rathje's fifth power-play goal in this season's playoffs.
The four-game demolition of San Jose fulfilled Detroit's desire for revenge ever since getting shocked by the Sharks in the first round of last year's playoffs. San Jose never led in this year's series.
"It's very tough to play this sort of game and not get a lot of action," Detroit goaltender Mike Vernon said. "It was very tough staying in this game and I expect a lot more shots facing Chicago."
The Red Wings scored four goals on their first eight shots Saturday.
Coffey stole a clearing pass and scored on a 45-foot slap shot 6:01 into the game, and Kozlov scored his sixth goal of the playoffs 28 seconds later on a breakaway set up by Ray Sheppard's long backhanded pass.
Brown made it 3-0 at 9:56 on a pinpoint centering pass from Kozlov, and Kozlov scored again 38 seconds later on a pass from Brown.