Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Kris Newbury (Draper, Miller); Patrick Eave (sh; unassisted); Derek Meech (Abdelkader, Stuart)
Phoenix: Taylor Pyatt (Lang, Jovanovski); Radim Vrbata (Hanzal, Jovonovski)

Pluses
+ Eaves was named first star of the game, and rightly so.  He was everywhere.  Babcock’s talked about his underrated shot recently, and he showed off with it quite a few times.  His shorty was just perfect; a laser coming off the wing.
+ The first and most of the second periods were like old Red Wings hockey that we’re used to.  It’s unfortunate they sort of sat back after they had a 3-1 lead.
+ The Red Wings absolutely dominated Phoenix on draws, 21-12.  I know Phoenix is never very good on faceoffs, but still.  Winning draws means puck possession, which means Red Wings hockey.
+ Datsyuk looked more like himself.  He made a couple nifty dangles and takeaways, and looked all-around more enthusiastic than we’ve seen recently.  I don’t know if maybe he finally found a suitable stick, or whatever, but I hope he keeps it up on Thursday.
+ Beautiful toe-drag by Maltby.  Like Mick said, “there’re the old 50 goal hands.”
+ Overall it was nice to see the kids getting it done.  Again, Eaves was a force out there, and Meech got his first goal of the season, and the game winner on a nice shot.

This is really in the middle for me.  Kris Newbury had a very eventful first period, with 2 penalties sandwiching the first goal of the game.  Out of the box, he redirected a beautiful pass from Draper that missed Miller and connected with Newbury.  But both of his penalties, particularly the second for tripping, were pretty boneheaded.

Minuses
- I was feeling great about the way the first period was going, and then suddenly all of that optimism and excitement were just sucked out of me when Ericsson crumpled to the ice.  Ericsson went off the ice putting zero pressure on his left leg, and the thought of him being out long term just makes me want to throw up.  It’s getting completely insane.  But The Chief put it best:

“Name me one team in the NHL that could withstand that kind of carnage and still be only six points out of the conference lead.  You can’t because there can be only one and it’s the Wings.”

Word is Helm might be back for Thursday’s game.  And Filppula by the end of December.  Then J. Williams.  Slowly, the team will come back.  And the rest of the conference better get ready.
– And then ensuing Phoenix goal.  Which brings to mind an utterly bizarre rule that I both understand, yet don’t get at all.  So because the Coyotes had possession when Ericsson went down, the play doesn’t get blown dead.  I didn’t know this, but Petrella explained it’s to prevent guys from rolling around on the ice if they’re not actually injured.  That much, I understand.  But my opinion is, if a guy clearly doesn’t look like he’s faking it, then maybe the whistle should be blown, no?
– Still don’t really notice Leino.  At least, not unless he’s falling down, which is something he seems to do with alarming frequency.  I’ve seen him take a shot and fall down.  Scratching him didn’t really seem to help a whole lot.
– Tip for Tampa Bay: if you don’t want the Red Wings to score on you, just stay in the box to keep them on the power play.  No frigging joke, we couldn’t buy a power play goal at this point.

Lastly, I just need to rant about how much I dislike NHL GameCenter Live this year.  I understand the want to have HD quality feeds, but with all the video “upgrades” they pretty much bricked my laptop for the purpose of watching games.  There’s a lot more buffering than I remember last year, and they know there are issues with the Neulion plugin on Macs, yet there’s no solution.  It really infuriates me when I can’t watch the end of  a game because GameCenter decided to shit itself.  I’d love the option to play the video at a bitrate that works on my laptop so I can actually watch the game.  Which is, oddly enough, what I thought I was paying for.

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