Red Wings aren’t tired of results

DETROIT —  As it turns out, rest is overrated.

The Detroit Red Wings cried foul when the NHL scheduled the start of the Stanley Cup finals series against the Pittsburgh Penguins just three days after their Western Conference finals victory over the Chicago Blackhawks.

And then to make the veteran-laden team play back-to-back nights to open the finals? How would they manage to stay on their skates?

The defending champions managed just fine, actually, as the Red Wings defeated the Penguins, 3-1, at Joe Louis Arena on Sunday night to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. It’s the second consecutive year the Red Wings won the first two games of the finals at home against the Penguins.

Game 3 is scheduled for Tuesday night at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh.

Jonathan Ericsson, Valtteri Filppula and Justin Abdelkader scored goals and Chris Osgood (31 saves) was strong in goal for the second time in 24 hours to propel the Red Wings.

“We’re happy to be up 2-0, but we’re not thrilled with the way we’ve played the first two games,” said Osgood, who improved to 14-4 during the postseason. “I’ve seen us play better, so we have to challenge ourselves to come out with our best game of the series [in Game 3]. They’ve played good hockey in the first two games and gave us everything we can handle.”

After Evgeni Malkin’s power-play goal late in the first period opened the scoring, Osgood and the Red Wings’ defense tightened to shut down the Penguins’ potent offense.

The Red Wings tied the score at 1-1 on Ericsson’s goal early in the second period. Darren Helm won a faceoff against Maxime Talbot in the Pittsburgh zone and the puck slid to Jiri Hudler, who got it to Ericsson. The defenseman, who underwent an appendectomy Wednesday but played in Game 1 on Saturday night, fired a shot from inside the blue line that beat goalie Marc-Andre Fleury to the glove side.

Filppula put Detroit in front, 2-1, midway through the second period. Marian Hossa’s shot was stopped by Fleury and in the scramble for the rebound, the puck hit teammate Tomas Holmstrom’s skate and squirted to Filppula, who lifted it into the net on his backhand.

In the opening minutes of the third period, Abdelkader, who scored his first career goal in Game 1, swatted at a bouncing puck at the top of the left circle and the shot fluttered over Fleury’s glove for a 3-1 Red Wings lead.

Teams that have won the first two home games in the Stanley Cup finals have gone on to win 31 of 32 times. Only the 1971 Montreal Canadiens dropped the first two road games and came back to win when they rallied against the Chicago Blackhawks in seven games.

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ckuc@tribune.com