Red Wings Report: Inside Shots

Johan Franzen has a dangerous, heavy wrist shot, but Red Wings coach Mike Babcock wants the power forward to use his size and strength to drive to the net more. That's the best way for him to snap out of an unusually long scoring slump.

Franzen has gone 11 games without a goal since his five-goal game in a 7-5 victory at Ottawa on Feb. 2.

Babcock wants Franzen to play more on the inside, be physical and be at the net. Saturday's game in Buffalo would be a good time to start as the Wings, who've lost their last two games, embark on a five-game road trip.

"He can always be a shooter," Babcock said. "But if you want to be a dominant power forward you got to be involved, you got to be on the inside. And when you're scoring, those things seem to happen naturally. When you're not scoring, they tend to get away from you. So he's just in a process of working his way back."

This is Franzen's longest goal-scoring drought since he went 11 games without a goal at the start of the 2007-08 season, when he still was a third-line grinder who didn't log as much ice time.

The 6-foot-3, 225-pound Franzen said he's not frustrated. He is confident he'll break through soon, having scored 116 goals in his last 225 games, including the playoffs.

STARS 4, RED WINGS 1: The Wings appeared to be set up nicely for this game.

They figured to be angry and motivated after losing at home two nights earlier, and they faced a reeling team that was missing its leading scorer, Brad Richards, because of injury. But little went the Red Wings' way. They started slowly, had an apparent goal waved off because of incidental contact with the goalie, couldn't convert on the power play until the final minutes, and simply didn't compete hard enough. The Wings fired 39 shots at Kari Lehtonen but fell behind 3-0 and didn't break through until Tomas Holmstrom scored with 3:31 to play in the third period. It was too little, too late.

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