Big Red Machine

I’m back from my DTD status, with a slightly revamped look for Big Red Machine (if you’re reading this in RSS, please make sure to take a look).

As a result of not having seen any of the three games this week due to travel for the holidays, airport woes, and family commitments, I won’t be providing my 3 stars of the week… so I’m soliciting you guys to let me know who played the best against Atlanta, Calgary and St. Louis and I’ll write up a belated post based on your suggestions.  Leave a comment: who do you think were the best players or had the most impact this week for the Red Wings?

While I’m trying to get back into the blogging groove, I’m also hoping that the Wings have found theirs and can stay on the right tracks tonight against Dallas.  Looks like Marty Turco is going to be in net, and we all know how well he fares at the JLA.  The team-wide scoring schneid has been broken, and Todd Bertuzzi at least scored a goal in some form.  I’m expecting them to continue the effort and pot at least a few.

Lastly, Big Red Machine has apparently been included in a Red Wings blog-off tournament over at theNHLArena.com.  You can go over and vote for your favorite Red Wings blog, who will then advance to a blog-off round against over Central division blogs.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday.

I’m listing myself as day-to-day for this weekend’s games, retroactive to Wednesday.  I may or may not be able to catch tonight’s game against Calgary, and same goes with tomorrow versus St. Louis.

Elliott Friedman and Cassie Campbell interviewed Darren Helm today on Hockey Night in Canada Radio on Sirius.  You can listen to it here.  They talk about coming back from injury, playing with Draper and Eaves, the PK, and Pavel’s level of fitness.

He’s the complete opposite end of the spectrum from a guy like Brad May, who’s clearly comfortable with the media and doing interviews.

There will be no game recap from me for the Atlanta game, as I’ll be wheels up on my way to my parents’ for Thanksgiving.  Which reminds me to mention that if you ever can’t catch a Red Wings game, make sure to check out Matt’s in-game Twitter feed, OtW_InGame for play by play.

Back at the beginning of the month, Justin Bourne (a former minor leaguer, now hockey blogger and writer/columnist for USA Today) wrote a piece about homophobia and gay slurs in hockey.  He stated that “It’s time to acknowledge we’ve been unfair to the gay community, that the culture of our sport can be misogynistic, homophobic and cruel. More important, it’s time to make a stand that we want it to change.”

Bourne added that, “Whoever the pioneer is will have to know what he’s in for – he’ll have to be a strong man, possibly in the literal sense.”

And maybe that pioneer will be Brendan Burke, son of Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke.

John Buccigross of ESPN wrote a fantastic profile today about Brendan and his story of coming out to his family, the Miami RedHawks, and to his father.

I wish this burden would fall on someone else’s shoulders, not Brendan’s. Pioneers are often misunderstood and mistrusted. But since he wishes to blaze this trail, I stand beside him with an axe! I simply could not be more proud of Brendan than I am, and I love him as much as I admire him.” — Brian Burke

I know Bucci has ruffled the feathers of some Wings fans recently, but put that aside for a minute and just read this.

Is it just me, or do the Wings seem to keep coming up against hot goalies recently?  Or at least goalies who really grab the opportunity by the throat.  Recently it’s been Auld, Price, Clemmenson, and now Rinne who have had really good games against the Wings.

Also, news that Georges Laraque got a 5 game suspension for his knee-on-knee hit.  I don’t think that’s really sufficient enough if the league wants to “make an example” of Laraque.  Nor does it even really punish the Habs–in fact, it probably helps them because he’s been dead weight the entire season.  So they get temporary relief while we lose our 3rd best defenseman.  Awesome.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Drew Miller (Cleary, Ericsson)
Nashville: Jason Arnott (pp; Sullivan, Weber); Martin Erat (pp; Ward, Legwand); Martin Erat (Tootoo, Hamhuis)

Pluses
+ Darren McCarty was a guest studio analyst on Versus.  After looking nervous for the first segment, he was smooth and did a great job.  I hope they have him back–he’s certainly more lively than Brian Engblom (who must get dressed in the dark), and Keith Jones.  That suit was a definite minus, though.  Draper joked that he must have rented it.
+ Chris Osgood played extremely well.  It’s unfortunate that the defense didn’t really get up for this game, because he’s the reason the score wasn’t worse than 1-3.
+ Hooray for Drew Miller, who scored his first goal of the season, and his first as a Red Wing.  He’s been playing well, albeit not all too noticeable, but he’s a solid 4th liner, and it’s great to see him contribute.  He was rewarded by being moved up mid-game to play with Zetterberg and Cleary.
+ I love it when Pavel decides he’s going to play physical and dish out a few hits.  He had two nice ones, an open ice shoulder, and another along the boards.
+ This isn’t really plus or minus, but it was entertaining so I’m putting it here.  Pekka Rinne tried to come out of the crease and slide-tackle Darren Helm.  It looked like he was channeling his inner Hasek.  Except he missed.
+ And a plus for Nashville, for pretty much smothering Pavel Datsyuk.  He got one shot on goal and missed on another.  They really made an effort to shut him down.

Minuses
- I haven’t the faintest idea what the PK thought they were doing on that first goal by Erat:

via Fanfeedr

– John Forslund and Darren Eliot were horrendous as the Versus announcers.  Forslund does play by play for Carolina and Eliot is the color guy for Atlanta.  Maybe you need to make obvious, pointless comments for those markets, I don’t know, but this was one of the worst broadcast games I can recall.
– Nashville fans are hilarious.   They do the “Os~good” chant like every opposing arena does, but they also add the collegiate “You suck, it’s all your fault” part.  Someone also threw a hat onto the ice after Erat got the 3rd goal of the game, and his 2nd of the night.  I mean…
– Todd Bertuzzi.  You need to move to a different line.  Unfortunately I don’t know where.  Just take a seat on the bench for a while.  I get the feeling that Babcock was trying in a way to replicate the Franzen-Datsyuk-Holmstrom line from last year, but the major, glaring difference is that Franzen has finish.  Lots of finish.  And of the clutch variety.  Bertuzzi?  Not so much.  Damnit, I miss having the Mule in the lineup.

My picks for Detroit’s stars for the week of 11/16-11/22.

#3: Darren Helm
I’m torn between Helm and Stuart here.  But Helm gets the nod because though he hasn’t been racking up a ton of points, he and the rest of his line with Draper and Eaves has looked great.  They’ve been buzzing around the ice, and Helm played a helluva game against Florida, showing that he’s growing nicely into a PK specialist.  If Clemmenson hadn’t been standing on his head, he would have popped in one of those two SH chances.

#2: Jimmy Howard
He played 2 out of 3 games this week, against Dallas and Montreal.  Babcock granted him the Montreal start as a sort of reward for having played so well while Osgood was out with the flu, or whatever it was he had.  He also got the win in the shootout against the Habs (thanks to Z, Pav), and that alone gives him the #2 spot because by the time we made it to the shootout, I’d resigned myself to a loss.

#1: Pavel Datsyuk
He looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders when he scored on the power play in the second period against Florida.  And he seems to be on the start of a possible scoring streak as he tallied another PP goal against Montreal, and also scored a glorious one in the shootout.  He also dominated the faceoff circle vs the Habs.

Larry Brooks of  the New York Post thinks that the Detroit Red Wings should retire Brendan Shanahan’s jersey and raise it to the Joe Louis rafters alongside Howe, Abel, Lindsay, Delvecchio, Sawchuck, Yzerman.

It’s an interesting question, and one that will be pondered quite a bit this season, I imagine.

He’s a sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famer.  He’s a member of the Triple Gold Club, 3-time Stanley Cup winner and the only player in league history to amass over 2000 PIMs and 600 goals.  He played a massive role in breaking the 2004-2005 lockout with his “Shanahan Summit.”

Shanahan was the missing piece to the championship teams that won three Stanley Cups between 1997 and 2002, of that there is zero question.  He fought and bled for Detroit for 9 seasons.  Who can forget that moment when he came flying across the ice on March 26, 1997 to clothesline Patrick Roy mid-air?  Or when he banged in the Statue of Liberty goal?  Or when he iced the empty netter in Game 5, 2002 and then lept into Stevie’s arms?  Or that Irish Jig they played when he scored?

But does he deserve to have his number #14 raised?  The immediate answer is no, particularly given that the Red Wings recirculated the number fairly soon after he left (a decision that I found rather disappointing.  I thought they could have waited a bit).

Also consider that the Red Wings are not the Montreal Canadiens, who seemingly retire everyone’s jersey, or the New York Rangers, who just retired the number  of almost everyone on the 1994 Stanley Cup team.  Oh, Detroit could, of course, retire pretty much the entire 2002 team, with all of its Hall of Famers.  But they don’t.

If they retired Shanny’s number, then where would it end?  Would they also have to consider Larionov’s #8?  What about Draper, when he hangs them up?  Osgood?  My opinion is, if you have to ask, then don’t do it.  Sure, I’d love to see Shanny get that sort of recognition–he was one of my favorite players–and it’s simply unfortunate that he played for as many teams as he did.  If he had been in Detroit for just a few years longer, then I think there’d be a chance.  Hopefully they’ll recognize him in some other way, but not by hanging #14 from the Joe.  The next number that goes up there will be #5.

If you feel so inclined, here’s a link to a 2006 SI article by Michael Farber on the Shanahan Summit.

What do you think?  Retire 14 or no?

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.

I came home last night just in time to see the Red Wings lose to the Panthers in OT.

I’ll probably catch the re-run on NHL Network, but there won’t be a game recap from me on this one.

Now, back to watching Michigan/OSU.

CBC’s Jeff Marek (@jeffmarek) did an interview with Brad May on HNiC Radio the other day.  They covered a multitude of topics, from the disallowed goal against Dallas, Battle of the Blades, to tossing the bucket during a fight, and wearing visors (it cracks me up that May wears his windshield pushed up, like Kronwall.  Like that’s going to really help).

I remember when we first acquired May, and he did an intermission interview with FS Detroit.  I was extremely and pleasantly surprised with how articulate and well-spoken May is.  To put on my publicist hat for a moment, he’s a fantastic interview, and should be at the top of the list for any media outlet looking for someone to talk current hockey topics and share a few anecdotes.

Hockey players are fairly bland interviewees, playing it safe with clichés.  They also use the word “obviously” way too often (though I can’t blame them when they’re asked questions whose answers are ridiculously apparent).  May doesn’t really rock the boat with sound bites ala Jeremy Roenick, but he’s thoughtful with his answers, and clearly has his opinions on several topics in hockey.  He also doesn’t mumble, which is always a bonus.  I could very easily see May doing some form of broadcasting when his playing career is over (he has a good voice for radio).

I can’t embed the interview, so here’s the link: HNIC Radio