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DETROIT (Ticker) -- Luc Robitaille again was the difference between the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets Brendan Shanahan had a goal and an assist and Robitaille snapped a tie with a power-play goal in the second period as the Red Wings extended their unbeaten streak to five games with a 5-1 victory over the struggling Blue Jackets.

Detroit and Columbus faced each other on November 21 in one of the more thrilling games of the season at Nationwide Arena. The Red Wings escaped with a 1-0 victory after Robataille scored with 43 seconds left in regulation.

But the rematch clearly was a mismatch, despite the absence of Detroit captain Steve Yzerman, who will miss a week or two with a bruised ankle.

Robitaille broke a 1-1 tie on the power play with 6 1/2 minutes left in the first period. Tomas Holmstrom's shot was stopped by Marc Denis, but Robitaille controlled the rebound and flipped it over the sprawled out goaltender.

"We wanted to get a lead early," Robitaille said. "They had to change their game a little bit. They want to be patient and play the trap. If you get a lead, it's tough for them to play that game."

Shanahan helped set up the go-ahead tally and added a power-play goal with 6:10 left in the second period to make it 4-1.

Detroit scored on 3-of-4 power-play chances and is 7-for-19 during its unbeaten streak (4-0-1).

"We made some good plays for goals," Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman said. "We seemed to get open. We missed some shots early on. But as the game wore on, we started to hit the net more."

"We're playing the way we want to play right now," Robitaille added. "We're keeping things simple. You keep shooting and crashing the net, you'll get goals. We're still being patient, we're getting our chances and doing a little bit more forechecking."

The Blue Jackets have lost four straight and are scoreless in their last 28 power-play chances. They squandered five opportunities with the man advantage on Thursday.

"They change the point of attack so much that it's really hard to play against them," Columbus coach Dave King said. "You have to be on top to compete with them. We didn't play well at all. Our penalty-kill gave up three goals. And we just can't do that."

Manny Legace, who had a personal 19-game unbeaten streak stopped in his last start on December 17, stopped 27 shots and improved to 8-1-0. He recorded his only shutout of the season in Detroit's first meeting with Columbus.

Defenseman Mathieu Dandenault gave the Red Wings a 1-0 lead with an unassisted goal 7:02 into the game.

"We knew Columbus would play a defensive game. It was important we scored first," Detroit center Sergei Fedorov said. "We got the power-play goal and we were more relaxed. Different power-play combinations stepped up. On rebounds, we were the first to the puck."

Mike Sillinger tied it just over three minutes later before Robitaille scored his third goal in as many games.

Rookie Pavel Datsyuk extended the lead at 5:11 of the second period, beating Denis with a backhander after working a give-and-go with Brett Hull.

Shanahan tallied with the man advantage 11 minutes later, giving him his 14th straight 20-goal season.

Rookie Sean Avery added a power-play goal 87 seconds into the final period to cap the scoring. It was his NHL goal in his fifth game with Detroit.

The Red Wings improved to 15-0-2 when leading after two periods, while the Blue Jackets -- who have a league-low 67 goals -- fell to 1-20-3-1 when scoring two or less.