The Detroit Red Wings made winning look easy, feasting on their latest opponent like a free brunch.

Saturday's matinee at Little Caesars Arena was an opportunity for the Wings to show off before a nationally televised audience, and so they did. They were up three goals on the St. Louis Blues a little more than five minutes in, and by five goals after 40 minutes. When the buzzer sounded after 60 minutes, the Wings celebrated a 6-1 victory.

"The past couple games, we've struggled with our starts, so that was an emphasis," Alex DeBrincat said. "I thought we did a good job of executing it – we got two goals there early and tried to keep that up."

DeBrincat, Patrick Kane, Lucas Raymond and Michael Rasmussen delivered multi-point performances against an opponent fighting for a wild-card berth in the Western Conference. The Wings have won four straight to solidify their foothold inside the Eastern Conference standings.

"The boys were skating," coach Derek Lalonde said. "Outside of some sloppy puck play in the second, it was a pretty complete game. We know if we're going to stay in this battle, and even get above that line in the end, we're going to need every single point.

"We're in a stretch of playing some really good hockey and I just think it's more about when you're peaking in your game, take advantage of it. And we're doing that right now."

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It was the most goals the Wings have scored in one game since before Christmas and it came with Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson on hand to sound the goal horn before the game began.

"That was good," Lalonde said. "It was good karma there."

The Wings (31-20-6) play again Sunday at 6 p.m. against the Blackhawks in Chicago.

Kane keeps rolling

Fresh off scoring in overtime to settle Thursday's 2-1 victory over the Colorado Avalanche, Kane picked up his 11th goal half a minute into the opening period against the Blues. Coming up the right flank with Shayne Gostisbehere on the left, Gostisbehere perfectly timed a pass across the ice for Kane to finish. Since debuting with the Wings on Dec. 7, Kane has points in 17 of 26 games, including in seven consecutive games (four goals, six assists).

Easy offense

Rasmussen followed suit less than four minutes after Kane's goal, scoring off a setup by Raymond as the Wings feasted on another opportunity off a rush. Less than six minutes in, the Wings had a 3-0 lead when Robby Fabbri got a piece of a puck that was loose in the paint. A Blues player touched it before that, so there were no assists on the play, but it was Christian Fischer who put the puck there to create the scoring chance. That was the Wings' sixth shot on net. Alex Lyon finished the period with eight saves and had help from a goal post when Brayden Schenn had a point-blank chance on a Blues power play.

Two with 20

One game after Kane became the 12th player on the team to reach 10 goals, DeBrincat became the second to reach 20, behind Dylan Larkin. Moritz Seider fired a pass from up high to DeBrincat, who was in the left circle. DeBrincat took a couple strides towards the net and snapped a shot behind Blues goalie Jordan Binnington with 57.6 seconds on the clock in the first period. It's the sixth time in his seven seasons that DeBrincat has scored at least 20 goals. Having given up four goals on 14 shots in 20 minutes, Binnington was replaced by Joel Hofer to start the second period. Before that period was over, Kane set up DeBrincat for his 21st goal.

Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from  Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Red Wings smash St. Louis Blues, 6-1, in LCA matinee