Oddly, I didn’t find myself feeling overly thrilled with this win. It was likely overshadowed by the sick feeling in my stomach when Kronwall went down. In one shift, Georges Laraque managed to high stick Darren Helm in the face, and get Nik Jr. with an intentional knee-on-knee hit. There are always reports about though Laraque is an enforcer he’s one of the nicest guys. Well, he made a dirty play on Kronwall, and he really should have gotten tossed for intent to injure (oh God, here we go again with “intent”). It was incredibly disappointing to realize that Brad May was not in the lineup, because I wanted him to just clobber Laraque. And maybe Big Georges thought he could take some liberties, knowing that May wasn’t playing. Makes me think that we should have May in all the time. Rotate Maltby and Abdelkader.
Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Brad Stuart (pp; Lebda, Cleary); Pavel Datsyuk (pp; Rafalski, Lidstrom)
Montreal: Mike Cammalleri (Kostitsyn, Spacek); Mike Cammalleri (Kostitsyn, Plekanec)
Shootout: DET: Datsyuk, Zetterberg
Pluses
+ Laraque’s bone-headed play gave the Wings a 4 minute and 2 minute powerplay. They managed to cash in on both opportunities.
+ Plus to young Jimmy for winning yet another game, and in the post-game skills competition. I always feel negatively towards the shootout, because our goalies don’t tend to fare well, so I just assumed we were going to lose and was happily surprised when we didn’t.
+ The Eurotwins both scored in the shootout. Pavel deked and Zetterberg didn’t do the damn postage stamp Forsberg move. All is right with the world.
+ This is going under plus, because I was expecting worse–sounds like as of now, Kronwall will be out 2-3 weeks with a sprained MCL in his left knee. The same knee he’s injured in the past. Wonderful. Some have tossed around the not-all-together-crazy idea about signing Chelios to a 2-way contract that would allow the Wings to send him back down to Chicago if need be. Not a bad idea, if you ask me, but I have a feeling they’re going to see if Meech is up to it, then maybe dig through GR. It’s nuts, our defensive pairings now look something along the lines of Lidstrom/Rafalski, Stuart/Ericsson, Lebda/Meech. That last one makes me want to cry, or be sick. Or both. Please get better, Andreas.
Minuses
– Very much not a fan of how Babcock kept throwing the PP unit of Bertuzzi-Cleary-Leino out first. Bert holds onto the puck too much, tries to dipsy-doodle around, and ultimately loses it. It’s a great way to eat seconds off the clock, except it’s on the power play.
– Pavel needs a finisher. He’s definitely trying to “more shoot” (he’s averaged 5 SOG in the last 3 or so games), but unfortunately it doesn’t help when his winger is Bertuzzi (see above. Bert does the same thing 5-on-5. For the love of God, give the puck to Pavel). Tragically, Pav would likely just pass it back anyway, and more often than not, Bert ends up fumbling the puck (Holmstrom is exempt from this argument because he just sets up in his office and does his thing). I have been in the pro-Bertuzzi camp since the beginning of the season when he showed us he could hustle and play defensive hockey. But my patience is wearing thin with him. Matt called it a “black hole of suck,” and I can’t find myself disagreeing.
– Way to sit back in the 2nd and 3rd, boys. Also, Cammalleri was scary determined.
– This is a minus for the Habs, but those blue jerseys were really lame. Save them for a non-Original 6 matchup, next time.
– And a minus to FSD for no longer airing the Pavel Datsyuk Dr. Rahmani Eye commercial anymore. Instead we’re stuck with Ben Gordon. Please bring back Pavel. And on that note, why isn’t Pav in the “Hockeytown, No Limits” commercial? I’m pretty certain he could spit out an “anywhere” or “Hockeytown”. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s (finally!) on Youtube.
I can only hope that everyone’s read this far, but don’t forget that Darren McCarty is going to appear on Versus Monday as a guest analyst for the Redwings/Predators game. Should be fun.