Detroit — The Red Wings continue to be in a post holiday fog.
They lost their second consecutive game coming out of the lengthy holiday and COVID-19 protocol break Sunday, 5-1, to the Boston Bruins.
The Wings opened the scoring, then saw the Bruins take gradual control, enabling Boston to leapfrog past the Wings in the division — and, for what it’s worth this early — wild-card standings.
The Wings have lost six of their last eight games.
Boston’s Charlie McAvoy and Trent Frederic scored 1:56 apart early the third period, stretching a 2-1 Bruins lead to 4-1. Then former Red Wing Tomas Nosek closed out the scoring.
BOX SCORE: Bruins 5, Red Wings 1
Boston goalie Jeremy Swayman stopped 22 shots.
Tyler Bertuzzi scored for the Wings (15-15-3).
Patrice Bergeron and Erik Haula added Bruins (16-10-2) goals.
The Wings hurt themselves on the power play, not being able to convert on four opportunities in the first half of the game, before the Bruins ran away with things.
Haula broke a 1-1 tie in the second period with his second goal.
Haula came out of the penalty box and gathered the puck, raced down left wing, and blistered a shot from the dot past Alex Nedeljkovic at 7:37.
Bertuzzi opened the scoring with his 13th goal, in the first period,
Danny DeKeyser’s shot from the point pinballed off several bodies before landing to the side of Swayman. Bertuzzi had no problem tapping the loose puck near the post into the net at 11:28.
But the Bruins answered shortly after with Bergeron scoring his 11th.
Brad Marchand won a puck battle along the boards, got the puck to Craig Smith behind the net, and Smith fed Bergeron driving to the net, at 14:47.
ted.kulfan@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @tkulfan