Red Wings turn to Alex Lyon early on, and he delivers

Alex Lyon waited five weeks for his first game a year ago, and then basically saved the Detroit Red Wings’ season.

He’s getting an earlier start this time around. The 31-year-old goaltender has stopped 56-of-58 shots in back-to-back road wins, including Tuesday’s 1-0 victory over the New York Islanders to keep his team from falling into a deep early season hole.

Lyon’s fourth career shutout got the Red Wings back to .500 (3-3-0).

“A couple spectacular saves for sure, but he looked confident and quiet throughout and I think when he’s on top of his game you can tell he’s on his toes,” coach Derek Lalonde told FanDuel Sports Network. “I think that gives some confidence for our guys. They did a pretty good job with some second efforts around the net. … Really good on Alex and really good start for him on the season.”

Lyon is 2-1-0 with a 1.46 goals-against average and .955 save percentage.

“I’m always nervous, but really you don’t know if it’s going to be a good night, but generally, you know if it’s going to be a bad night,” Lyon told media in New York. “That’s a bit more stressful. I wasn’t coming into the game thinking, ‘Oh, I’m feeling it,’ or anything like that. I actually think we did a great job in Nashville (5-2 win Saturday), too, limiting them to outside chances. On the power play (Tuesday) I think we did a good job of keeping them to the perimeter and we gutted out a big win.”

Lalonde said they’ll decide in due time who will start Thursday at home against New Jersey (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network), but with three games in four nights, Cam Talbot will be back in the mix at some point.

Patrick Kane’s goal at 8:54 of the first period, off a nice feed from Vladimir Tarasenko, was the only scoring. Lyon made 29 saves, while his team was limited to 11 shots.

“I liked the way we defended throughout,” Lalonde said. “There’s going to be some games through your 82 where you don’t have your legs. You got to find a way to maybe play a little bit of your ‘B’ game and I thought for the most part the guys did a good job.”

Dylan Larkin said, “Those are two points Al got us.”

“He was phenomenal for us again tonight,” Larkin told FanDuel. “Kaner with the huge goal. Vladdy, I thought was our best player other than Al, and we just battled to the end. The first 20 wasn’t good enough. I thought the next 40 was OK. Two points all that matters.”

Kane summed it up by telling reporters at UBS Arena, “Pretty ugly win but we’ll take it.”