from Ted Kulfan of the Detroit News,

The Colorado Avalanche are the best team in the NHL in terms of points and win percentage.

They looked the part Wednesday at Little Caesars Arena in a 5-2 victory over the Red Wings.

The Avalanche scored on the game's first shift, and took advantage of the slow-starting Wings, as they raised their record to an NHL-best 37-10-4.

Filip Zadina and Robby Fabbri (power play) had goals for the Red Wings (23-23-6), who played their first game in six days and showed it early on.

"The first period wasn't our best," forward Dylan Larkin said. "They're a heck of a hockey team. We had five days off and there was some rust. We have to find a way to come out more competitive than that.

"We practiced hard the past couple of days, and they've played games and games are important. It wasn't the most favorable schedule but we have to find a way to come out and at least suck up the first 20 minutes and make it harder than we did."...

"They're good, and they were good early," coach Jeff Blashill said. "They are good in the offensive zone, good on the rush, and even without (Nathan) MacKinnon (who didn't play because of a minor injury) their record is spectacular actually. But we couldn't feel our way into this game, we knew they were going to come hard especially coming off a loss.

"We looked a little bit like we've been off for a while. We have to fight our way through that in the schedule."

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Below, watch post game talk from Jeff Blashill, Dylan Larkin, Mickey Redmond plus the game highlights.