Big Red Machine

Just got an email from the NHL stating that Wednesday’s exhibition game against Farjestads will be streamed live on NHL.com. Unfortunately it’s at 1pm ET, but I’m hoping I can hunker down at my desk and watch at work…

Wednesday, Sep 30, 2009
DETROIT vs. Farjestads BK Karlstad
Compuware / NHL Premiere Challenge
1:00 PM ET, LIVE on NHL.com

From Khan at MLive, here’s the roster that took the flight to Sweden (Larsson is coming as well, as emergency backup, and Abdelkader is mostly penciled in until Helm returns).

Forwards (13)
Johan Franzen-Pavel Datsyuk-Tomas Holmstrom
Todd Bertuzzi-Henrik Zetterberg-Dan Cleary
Ville Leino-Valtteri Filppula-Jason Williams
Kris Draper-Justin Abdelkader-Patrick Eaves-Kirk Maltby

Defensemen (7)
Nicklas Lidstrom-Brian Rafalski
Niklas Kronwall-Brad Stuart
Jonathan Ericsson-Brett Lebda
Derek Meech

Goalies (2)
Chris Osgood
Jimmy Howard

I did my fantasy hockey draft tonight, and while I’m not thrilled with my picks, I’m not upset, either. I had the 9th pick in a 12 team snake draft. We’re picking 2 each of C, RW, LW, W, and G. 4 D and 4 bench players.

The scoring will be G, A, +/-, PIM, PPG, SHG, GWG, SOG. It’s a keeper league.

Here’s my team, Big Red Machine:

C Pavel Datsyuk (DET)
C Joe Thornton (SJS)
C Mikko Koivu (MIN)

LW Ilya Kovalchuck (ATL)
LW Alexei Ponikarovsky (TOR)
LW Andrew Brunette (MIN)

RW Martin Havlat (MIN)
RW Mike Knuble (WAS)
RW Brian Gionta (MON)
RW Dan Cleary (DET)

D Nicklas Lidstrom (DET)
D Rob Blake (SJS)
D Duncan Keith (CHI)
D Craig Rivet (BUF)
D Cory Sarich (CGY)

G Nikolai Khabibulin (EDM)
G Chris Mason (STL)
G Scott Clemmensen (FLA)

I had gone into the draft under the assumption that most of the others would know mostly Eastern Conference players, and I was not wrong. I mean, I got Datsyuk with the 9th pick. Zach Parise, Mike Green, Jeff Carter all went before him. I’m largely upset that I sat on Franzen, thinking I could pick him up in a later round, and lost him to my friend. I did the same with Brendan Morrow and Pekke Rinne, but I’m most annoyed with myself about Mule, because I think he might crack 40 goals this year.

Now I just have to wait for the puck to drop.

Let’s take a quick poll:

Is anyone concerned that the Red Wings have only won 2 out of 7 pre-season games thus far? And that they’ve dropped the last 5 consecutively?

I’ll be honest: it’s a little disturbing to see the same trend that plagued the Red Wings last year rear its head again. That trend was playing 20 to 40 minutes of a game, usually either starting slow or falling asleep in the middle, and cranking it up in the third.

The goaltending I’ve seen so far also hasn’t done a whole lot to inspire confidence. Howard has been what I expected–inconsistent and not extremely solid. Larsson looked to be fighting pucks a bit the two games I’ve seen him in. McCollum looked nervous in the one I saw. Pearce has yet to play, as far as I’m aware, which is a little odd since he hasn’t been cut, either. Greg Eno wrote a piece on the promise Osgood made to never have as season like 08-09 again, and to be better prepared this year. Oz isn’t looking awesome so far. He’s certainly not playing like he did just a few months ago during the Finals, but does anyone really expect that? He knows this is pre-season, and he’s not going to blow his groin out to make a save now. But I think he’ll be ready when the puck drops for real. I believe in Oz.

What concerns me more is the defense. I watched the game they played against the Leafs on Friday, and while they iced mostly regulars, it was not Red Wings defense that I saw. Kronwall’s played about 4 or 5 games, but he still looks like he’s figuring a few things out. As is Ericsson, but that’s more expected given that he’s had fewer years of experience. Meech and Lebda are absolutely killing me and I fear for the third pairing on the back end.

Babcock knows all this, but still he’snot freaking out–too much:

“You always wonder, ‘Geez, what’s going on?’ But you just watch and see how things go.”

And Kirk Maltby makes a blindingly obviously, yet still astute comment that basically sums up what they need to do:

“…we need to start getting into regular-season mode now and not wait until a month into the season.”

I took some pictures from the Red Wings v Rangers pre-season game on the 21st.  Most are from the warmup, and a few from the game (All photos © Ellen Manuszak).

Also, I had posted this on Twitpic, but it’s true–Dan Cloutier was between the pipes in a Red Wings uniform.

Yes it’s just the pre-season, but I’m still upset that we lost. The Red Wings had a fairly atrocious first period, but got it back together in the 2nd and 3rd. The finishing isn’t quite there yet.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit – Leino (Filppula, Ryno); Maltby (Abdelkader, Delmore)
New York – Prospal (pp; unassisted); Lisin (pp; Gaborik, Sanguinetti); Callahan (Grachev); Anisimov (empty net)

I was at MSG for the game last night, and did a decent amount of twittering. You can check my twitter page, and most of my recap will be from those same tweets.

• Pavel Datsyuk is stupifyingly amazing, even just watching him warm up.  The things he can do with the puck are really ridiculous.
• The Rangers scored stupidly early into the start of the game (1:34), but it was waved off due to a penalty by Ericsson. This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the game.
• PIMs were 18 to 10, Detroit, but I will tell you that I have a hard time recollecting New York even getting 5 penalties all game. Absolutely way too many trips to the box. I don’t care if the refs were calling ticky-tack penalties, they need to be aware of what’s being called and play accordingly.
• Marian Gaborik is a beast, and bulldozed his way around the Detroit net for Vinny Prospal’s goal, the first of the game.
• The PK was not good. The first two Rangers goals were on the power play.
• Along those lines, Larsson didn’t look incredible. I thought he was shaky and looked to be fighting the puck a bit.
• I also still cannot believe that I actually saw Dan Cloutier in a Red Wings uniform with my own eyes. He managed to get a holding penalty shortly after taking the net over, and also got into a bit of a scrum with Aaron Voros.
• Meech was absolutely brutal on defense. As was Andy Delmore–they don’t call him “Any Elmore” for no reason. I cringed every time I saw them out on the ice.
• The first period shots were 18-4, New York. That also led to 3 goals for the Rangers, and 1 for Detroit. Hey, at least Detroit had a better shot:goal ratio, right? Right…
• Matt Gilroy is the real deal, and I will be stunned if the Rangers do not sign him with the big club for this season. They look like a different team with a puck-moving defenseman. They finally have a quarterback for the power play.
• No, seriously. Dan Cloutier. He really played. He only faced 8 shots, but at least he saved them all. There were a few overly dramatic moments, but oh well.

[liveblog]3[/liveblog]

Tonight the New York Rangers will be rolling to Joe Louis Arena to take on the Detroit Red Wings in Detroit’s second game of the pre-season.

Fresh news out of Detroit, Zetterberg’s not playing due to a flareup in his sore groin.  I’m not freaking out about this.  They’ve got 6 more games after this one before they head to Sweden, and quite frankly, I doubt Zetterberg needs to play all that many to get back into game-shape.  He’ll be fine with 3-4 games, and some more time to let his groin heal.

So here’s the lineup tonight:

Forwards
Bertuzzi-Abdelkader-Cleary
Leino-Filppula-Jason Williams
Ryno-Emmerton-Maltby
Ritola-McGrath-Mursak

Defense
Kronwall-Janik
Lebda-Stuart
Meech-Kindl

Goalies
Osgood
McCollum

I don’t have the lineup for the Rangers, but it sounds like Marian Gaborik is still not ready to play.

MSG is airing the game, which starts at 7:30.  FSDetroit is not showing it.  I’ll be live blogging from the start, so be sure to check back!

Update 2:04pm

Steve Zipay has more on who the Rangers will and will not be icing for tonight’s game:

So, it appears that Henrik Lundqvist and Matt Zaba will share duties in net tonight, and the defense will be Redden,  Rozsival, Girardi, Heikkinen, Semenov, Potter.

Along with Gaborik, Prospal, Kotalik, Staal, Del Zotto, Gilroy and Sanguinetti will not be playing tonight.  I’m a little disappointed, because I’d love to see what Gilroy does faced with an offensive corp like Detroit’s.  But it’d have been almost a moot point anyway, now that Z’s sitting out.  Hopefully Gilroy will play when the Red Wings visit MSG on Monday.

Update 3:49pm

Here are the line combinations for the Rangers tonight:

Higgins-Drury-Callahan
Brashear-Boyle-Voros
Avery-Crowder-Parenteau
Grachev-Anisimov-Lisin

Redden-Rozsival
Heikkinen-Potter
Semenov-Sanguinetti

The Red Wings played their first pre-season game tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers.  I didn’t get a chance to watch, or listen, but the final score was DET 3, PHI 1.  Goals by Draper, Jamie Tardif, and Jeremy Williams.  James van Riemsdyk scored the lone goal for the Flyers.

With pre-season underway, it can only mean one thing…

Hockey season is almost here.

I’ve got tickets to the Red Wings @ Rangers pre-season game on the 21st, and can hardly contain myself at the first chance this year to not only see the Wings, but also see some of the prospects.  The only prospect I’ve seen play (beyond Helm, Abdelkader), is Jordan Pearce, when he was at Notre Dame.

As a Red Wings fan stranded in New York, I’m actually going to be able to see the Wings play in person quite a few times this season.  They are making their way to the Tri-State area for back to back games in December against the Devils and then the Rangers, which I have tickets for.  And they’ll be back to play the Islanders in January.  I’ll also likely make the trip to Washington for that game a couple of weeks after they visit the Island.  And if I’m lucky, I’ll catch a game in Columbus and/or Detroit.

Drop the puck already, I don’t think I can wait any longer.

Alexander Ovechkin made an appearance at the NHL powered by RBK store in New York City (47th st. and Avenue of the Americas) today to promote NHL 2K10. He made a grand entrance by driving a zamboni down the block on the Avenue of the Americas.

I snuck out of work for about 15 minutes so that I could get a glimpse of him. Here are the photos I took (click for larger, all photos © Ellen Manuszak):

H/T to Babcock’s Death Stare for the tip off that Dan Cloutier is attending Red Wings’ training camp on a tryout.

As with most of us, I think the thing we think of immediately when considering Dan Cloutier is this:

Apparently Cloutier called the Red Wings and asked if he could come on a tryout. What, is he dillusional? Did all the media hyperbole about how bad the Red Wings’ goaltending is going to be this season convince him that he has a shot? Sure, the goaltending situation is a little more questionable than is has been in past years, but it’s certainly not desperate enough that they’d go to Dan Cloutier of all people.

Does he actually think he has a chance, or is he just hoping to be relevant again? If he seriously wanted to try and gain a spot via tryout, why wouldn’t he have contacted a team that has much more questionable goaltending? Colorado is still stuck with Peter Budaj and picked up Craig Anderson during the off season.

I hope someone brings up the Lidstrom goal during training camp.