In a word: unacceptable.  I have nothing good to say about this game.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Niklas Kronwall (Bertuzzi, Hudler)
Dallas: Brad Richards (pp; Niskanen, Ribeiro); Loui Eriksson (Richards, Neal); Brenden Morrow (Ribeiro); James Neal (Richards, Daley)

– The forecheck showed up occasionally, but it wasn’t steady, and I’ve still yet to see strong puck possession from this team, outside of the season opener against a weak Ducks team.  It simply didn’t look like anyone was hungry for the puck.

– The turnovers!  Detroit had 9 giveaways and Dallas took the puck back 12 times.  Even The Perfect Human had a turnover.

– Going into this game we all talked about Osgood’s ridiculously good record against Dallas.  Unfortunately, your career record won’t win the game for you.  Sadly, it felt like that’s how the team treated this game.  You can’t pin the entire game on Osgood.  Yeah, 4 goals in 15 shots.  I see that.  But the skaters up front weren’t doing much to help.  This was a team effort in failure.

= So Dallas only got 15 shots on goal, but it makes me wonder if that’s more due to the Stars’ offense more than Detroit’s defense.

– Mule has a concussion after being hit by Mark Fistric.  I don’t know if it was an elbow to the head or what–to be honest, it looked more like a shoulder that jammed upwards from the Dallas feed.  Regardless, this is not good news.

– The power play is just… sterile.

+ I lied, I do have something good to say: Kindl looked good.  He wasn’t too noticeable, but for a rookie that’s always a good thing.  He played quite a bit more than I thought: 19:14, with 4:13 on the power play.  He had 2 shots on net, and finished the game even.  His TOI says a lot about Babcock trusting him with the minutes.  He had a good 3 more minutes than Salei.

= Speaking of TOI, Babcock really rode the workhorses.  Datsyuk played 21:52, Zetterberg 21:35, and Lidstrom played a whole 27:01.  With Franzen out in the first period it makes sense that Pav and Z’s minutes were up, but Nick’s are pretty astounding.  Too bad they ended up -3, -2, and -2, respectively.

– As much as the boys didn’t put in the effort to win for Modano, he wasn’t too fabulous himself, with 0 shots on net.  He did manage to escape with an even +/- in 15:14 TOI, and went 55% in the face-off circle.  I had wondered in the game preview if he was going to look more like a deer in the headlights or a man on the mission.  More the former over the latter, to me.  One thing that stood out to me was twice in one power play he was on the point with Lidstrom and the puck just went sailing between them and out of the zone, forcing everyone to exit and regroup.  A similar thing happened again in a later power play, when one of the other players had to come down and try to corral the puck, but it slide out of reach, past Modano who was hanging out at the boards, and into the neutral zone.  Were some of them errant passes?  Yes, but playing point is more than just cranking bombs from the blueline.

= I also agree with Ted Kulfan that Dallas really could have, and should have done more for their former franchise player.  20 years and all he gets is a minute or so of applause with a little “thank you” on the Jumbotron?  Serven put it best: “I hear no booing. Classy by the Stars fans. VERY classy by the Stars fans. BUT, you get no points for doing the right thing #RedWings”  I know he’s in another uniform now, but that doesn’t and shouldn’t immediately and automatically discount what he’s done for your franchise.

I know it’s only 4 games into the season, which ultimately means nothing, but losing back to back games is not a habit to get into.  The 4-0 season opener win means nothing.  The gutsy 3-2 win against Chicago at their banner raising means nothing.  Two inexcusably awful losses in a row?  That means something.

p.s. as a note on this Saturday’s game, I won’t be around, so no posts from me.  I’ll be in Denver that night to run the Denver half marathon on Sunday.

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Now that’s what you call starting with a bang.  A big bang, punctuated loudly with 4 goals, a shutout, and a Gordie Howe hat trick.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Johan Franzen (Filppula, Bertuzzi), Mike Modano (Cleary, Stuart), Pavel Datsyuk (Zetterberg, Rafalski), Dan(ny) Cleary (Datsyuk)
Anaheim: none

Jonathan Ericsson Watch: 1 Game.

+ Wings looked good to start.  Good jump to the game, clean, crisp passing, and they put pressure on the Ducks’ weak defense.  The Ducks looked rather lost and discombobulated in the first, and the Wings definitely took advantage, to the tune of 12 shots on goal to 6.

+ Get on the Mule Train.  Franzen has developed a serious scoring touch, as shown by his ability to bring it at the end of the post-season and then pick right up where he left off to begin the 2010-2011 campaign.

+ First shot on net in a new uniform, in a new barn and it’s a goal for Mike Modano.  Ken Kal totally called it from the Red Wings TV preview.  But it’s got to be a relief for Mikey Mo, who doesn’t have to worry about his first goal looming over his head now.

= I sort of stopped paying attention to the game midway and towards the end of the first period, as that’s when the news came that goalie Ondrej Pavelec had collapsed in the middle of the Atlanta/Washington game.  He just lost consciousness out of nowhere, with the puck at the opposite end of the ice.  The news from Atlanta was really scary, and reminiscent of the Jiri Fischer situation.  That’s something you never want to hear about, regardless of the player or the team.  Thankfully it sounds like Pavelec is alright, and play resumed after he was taken to the hospital.

- The Ducks looked much more composed in the second, and by comparison the Wings looked messier.  Lots more play in their own zone in front of Howard and some less than ideal turnovers.  The Wings let the Ducks regain a bit more momentum, and fingers crossed that this lackadaisical, sleepy middle period isn’t a trend that we see again this season.  The Wings only got off 7 shots in the second, and Howard faced 9.

+ But the sophomore looked good.  The defense was strong for the most part in front of him, but he made some big saves when called upon.  He looked calm and confident, which bodes well for the season.

- At some point during the second Ericsson left the bench with back spasms.  He didn’t return to the game, and it looks like Kindl will get his chance sooner rather than later.  And no, leaving or not playing due to injury doesn’t count in the Jonathan Ericsson Watch pool.  It’s games played–updates are on the right sidebar.

+ The Eurotwins looked good.  Really good.  I’m so excited.

= I aLOLed (™ Tyler) at that goal review ruling.  Seriously, I really didn’t think it would be allowed, and that’s not based on my membership in the tin foil hat society.  But, apparently the “War Room” in Toronto didn’t think the goal was completely off its moorings when the puck crossed the line.  The annoying thing is that the Wings didn’t technically need the goal at that point, or ultimately at all.  And because I do believe in hockey karma, I’m waiting for when a goal gets called off against when they do really need it.

+ It wasn’t a donnybrook by any stretch of the imagination, but the fight between Corey Perry and Pavel Datsyuk was incredible.  And as awesome as it was, how many of you were alternately freaking out that Pav was going to end up concussed or with a broken hand?  Because I certainly was.  Thankfully Pav took down Perry at the end.  Datsyuk was really riled up, having gotten in the middle of two scrums earlier in the game.  I love it when he’s feisty because that’s usually when he plays his best hockey, when he’s hitting everything in sight and energized.  Proof of that was his goal and assist to complete the Gordie Howe Hat trick.

+ The Ducks make me laugh.  They self-destructed due to frustration towards the end of the game, with another fight between Brookbank and Stuart, and 2 more penalties for too many men and hooking with under 4 minutes left in the game.

- Detroit had 6 power play opportunities and managed to convert none of them.  Gotta work on that.

+ This is how you start a season.  This is how you redeem yourself from a disappointing 2nd round playoff exit last season and channel it into productive energy.  This is how you prove to the MSM and the rest of the hockey world that you’re not too old, and that you’re still a contender in the division and in the conference.  This is how you show everyone that you’re serious.  This is the kind of truculence that wins games (maybe the Leafs should take note…).

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In the spirit that is the pre-season, this is just going to be a mish-mash of notes and thoughts, rather than a fully fleshed out game recap.

• First up, Mountain Time sucks.  It’s great for the games on the West coast, sure, but for 7pm ET starts?  I live 5 minutes away from work, and I had to book it so I could get home for the puck drop, which is something I really hate to miss.  I’m seriously thinking about coming into work half an hour early on 7pm game days during the regular season.
• Tomas Tatar looks awesome.  I can’t wait until this kid’s gotten some more experience in the AHL and gets the call up.  He’s slick but not enigmatically so.  And from what the Olczyk and Pat Foley from CSN were saying, he didn’t even take warmups prior to the game?
• Jimmy only faced 8 shots, but he looked good.  And before we all start drawing comparisons to Osgood, can I just put out a plea to take the defense into account?  Osgood saw 27 shots in two periods thanks to what sounded like a lot of poor defense.  I’m not saying that Oz couldn’t have played better, or that Jimmy wasn’t the better looking of the two in terms of play, but still.  Some perspective, please.  Let’s see how he plays behind the full roster, please.
• The Mursak goal was a nice instance of being in the right place, in front of the net, and ready to tap in the rebound.
• I love watching Lidstrom bomb pucks from the point and seeing them go in, with Holmstrom’s ass in the goalie’s face.
• Until he shot the waived off goal, I felt like Kronwall had whiffed on about 4 shots from the point in a row.  Here’s to hoping that playing with Nick drags him up to the level we’ve been looking for.
• Ericsson looked a little… confused.  Saw him fumble the puck unnecessarily a few times.
• It’s so great to see the Pav-Z-Homer line out there again.  I see the argument for trying to spread out the scoring if necessary, but they’re just so effective together.
• I think everyone needs a refresher on the “goaltender interference” rule when it comes to being in the crease.  From the way the refs have called it the past few seasons, to even listening to the Chicago pxp guys, you’d honestly think that simply being in the crease was cause to waive off a goal.  I distinctly recall hearing Versus always harping on about Holmstrom’s skates being on the edge of the blue paint as if that were the deciding factor for goalie interference.

For tonight’s game, Khan has the lineup:

Jordan Owens-Valtteri Filppula-Todd Bertuzzi
Drew Miller-Justin Abdelkader-Francis Pare
Jamie Tardif-Cory Emmerton-Jan Mursak
Tomas Tatar-Joakim Andersson-Aaron Downey

Brad Stuart-Jonathan Ericsson
Doug Janik-Brendan Smith
Jakub Kindl-Logan Pyett

Chris Osgood
Thomas McCollum

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The Wings proved that they’re not done yet, but realistically, it’s one game.  And a blowout, no less.  It’s not abnormal to get that in an elimination situation.  It’s keeping it up and not losing in San Jose for Game 5.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Todd Bertuzzi (pp; Franzen, Zetterberg); Johan Franzen (Zetterberg, Lidstrom); Johan Franzen (Bertuzzi, Lidstrom); Johan Franzen (unassisted); Valtteri Filppula (Holmstrom, Datsyuk); Brian Rafalski (pp; Bertuzzi, Franzen); Johan Franzen (Bertuzzi, Lidstrom)
San Jose: Dany Heatley (pp; Thornton, Marleau)

+ Holy. Johan. Franzen.  He was saying he hasn’t felt 100% yet.  We’ve all been saying “where’s the post-season Mule?”  Mule got hit with a too many men on the ice penalty a minute into the game, and Babcock was clearly unhappy with him, since it took about 4 minutes after that gaffe for him to see ice.  But boy oh boy did he make an effort to get out of the doghouse, with a hat trick.  Franzen recorded the 2nd fastest hat trick in playoff history in 3:26, only 2 seconds off the current record by Tim Kerr from 1985 (source: ESPN).

Welcome back, playoff Mule.  It reminded me of the 2008 Colorado series.  TSN showed a shot of Mule on the bench and he just looked so focused, and in the zone, it was incredible.  Utter domination.

+ Clearly, making the line changes up top helped.  Bertuzzi, Zetterberg and Franzen all combined for 13 points.  All three of them had a fantastic game.

+ 5 goals in the first period.  That’s what I’m talking about.  Hilariously, SJS actually outshot Detroit in the first, where all the scoring happened, 11-9.  For his services, Nabokov sits on the bench with a .444 SV% after 20 minutes.

+ Also, aLOL (™ Tyler) at Dan Boyle.  He tried to pass to Douglas Murray, who was camped out right in front of Nabokov, and the puck bounced off Murray’s skate, and slid past Nabokov, who wasn’t very aware.  That’s pretty much the second time this post-seaon that Boyle has, for all points and purposes, scored in his own net.

– I hate how GameCenter Live never shows the full feed from TSN–they cut to reruns of commercials and filler from NHLN during TV time outs and intermissions, and then I miss information.  Like Brad Stuart getting hit hard in the 1st and not coming back.  Good news is, he’ll likely be back for Game 5.

– Pot, meet kettle. Joe Thornton was making diving motions with his hands when he got sent to the box for knocking over Holmstrom, and has been quoted as saying “I thought they were diving around there pretty good.”  Just… shut up.  Seriously.  Now, I don’t condone the Wings stooping to their level, but the Sharks do deserve a taste of their own medicine, so to speak.

+ I love seeing Abdelkader being gritty and mixing it up.  He owned Nichols in their “fight,” just dropping him to the ice.  I’ve said it before, but he’s becoming the next Kirk Maltby in terms of agitating, and playing a simple, solid defensive 4th liner role.

What needs to be kept in mind is that this is one game–a game that several are calling an outlier because it was such a blowout.  And many are also quick to point out that the Wings haven’t strung together two strong games back to back in this post-season yet.  But Saturday’s another Game 7.  And from what we’ve seen, the Wings have done pretty well in elimination scenarios.

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Now that’s what I’m talking about.  I had faith in this team that they would bring it.  And boy did they ever, dismantling the Coyotes 6-1.

Pavel had 2 goals, Zata had 3 assists, and Nick had 2 power play goals and an assist.  They were, rightfully, 1-3, the stars of the game.  The big boys stepped it up and brought their A game when the team needed it.  Rafalski and Filppula also had 2 assists apiece.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Pavel Datsyuk (pp; Lidstrom, Rafalski); Pavel Datsyuk (Zetterberg, Rafalski);  Nicklas Lidstrom (pp; Filppula, Zetterberg), Brad Stuart (unassisted); Todd Bertuzzi (Filppula, Zetterberg); Nicklas Lidstrom (Rafalski, Franzen)
Phoenix: Vernon Fiddler (unassisted)

+ Detroit tore out of the gate.  This was an outstanding exhibition of classic Red Wings hockey.  Puck possession, defense jumping up, solid forecheck, and crashing the net.  A perfect penalty kill, including a 3-on-5.  A 3/7 power play conversion rate.  50 shots on goal to 33.  5 takeaways to Phoenix’s 9 giveaways.  Talk about finally putting the skate to the throat.  This was utter domination by the Wings.  This was them saying “if you think we’re done, go fuck yourself.”

+ What a relief to see the special teams all back to normal.  The first power play unit got cranking, and the PK was functioning like it should, rather than that weird anomaly from Games 1 and 6.

– Jimmy really probably should have been more prepared for that faceoff in which Vernon Fiddler just slid the puck between his legs right off the draw.  There’s just really no excuse for that.

+ Happy Birthday to Nick Lidstrom.  2 power play goals and some seriously ridiculous defensive play just reinforced the fact that he’s probably actually part android, because there’s no way he played anything like a 40 year old.  He had 7 SOG (plus 5 missed shots for 12 total), played 23:59, and looked like The Perfect Human he is.

+ Nicole from the Red Wings set up a very cool video chat, drawing on the #redwingscommune get-togethers that have been happening in Detroit.  Lots of fun, and a great way for us out of staters to join in.  With this, however, came the revelation of my secret identity.

See, I’m actually Pavel Datsyuk.  And Nick Lidstrom.  And Brad Stuart.  And… well, maybe not Todd Bertuzzi.  Every single time I got knocked off the #redwingscommune video chat, the Red Wings scored.  Every.  Freaking.  Goal.  All six of them.  Which of course led to jokes that I’m actually running off to score for the Wings.

Yep.  That’d be me.  Goal scorer extraordinair.

+ Speaking of goals, those Pavel Datsyuk goals were just beautiful.  Sublime, as my dad likes to call Pavel.  1:41 apart, and 2 minutes into the period, Datsyuk took control and set the tone early in the second.  That pass from Z to spring him and then the curl-and-drag by Pavel… what a thing of wonder.  I know this is kind of mean, but I can’t deny that I enjoyed seeing Bryzgalov just sitting there and look utterly defeated after Pavel’s second.

- Helloooo penalties!  I don’t understand how Darren Helm gets called for Diving, when right before that Keith Yandle got a nice 8.5 for his dive on the Drew Miller “trip.”  It’s the playoffs.  Referees need to learn to let the two teams play.  Cue the tinfoil hat accusations, which I don’t necessarily agree with, but you have to admit they were a little whistle-happy in the 2nd period, overall.

+ One good thing that came from said penalties?  Brad Stuart zipping out of the box to pick up the loose puck and flip it home.

= Weirdly, Zetterberg didn’t have a great night in the faceoff circle.  He went 7 and 11.  Conversely, Datsyuk went pretty much the opposite, at 12 and 7.  Wings barely held the advantage, 37 to 31.

– Where, oh where have Mule and Cleary gone?  Moving into the second round, the Wings are going to need scoring from everyone.  And against the Sharks, having a physical presence will be important again.  These guys need to step it up.

+ Congrats to the Coyotes though, for having a great season, and (now that it’s over) for putting up a good fight and giving us great hockey.

+ I knew they would do it.  Thanks, boys.

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Stay tuned for something super cool coming up this weekend at Big Red Machine, though.

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As for the game, I don’t think I breathed the entire time the Wings held onto that 1 goal lead.  I’ve never been so relieved to get the safety goal.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Henrik Zetterberg (pp; Kronwall, Rafalski); Pavel Datsyuk (Franzen, Lidstrom); Henrik Zetterberg (Bertuzzi, Stuart)
Phoenix: none

– I missed the first 10 minutes, roughly, of the 1st period due to the awkward 6:30pm ET game start.  I did get home and fired up GameCenter Live just in time to hear Mickey and Ken Daniels trying to explain the Filppula non-goal.

– Looking at the faceoff stats after 1 period, I couldn’t even believe it.  7-20, in favor of Phoenix.  Shots were 17-9, Detroit, though, and the Wings did manage to even up on the draw to end at 30-31.  But that aside, 7-20 is just unacceptable.

+ I said after Game 3 that if Howard still looked shaky tonight, then I thought it might be time to pull him in favor of Osgood.  But Jimmy pulled up his big-boy pants, and has clearly taken to the Chris Osgood School of Zen in how he did not let Game 3 affect him tonight.  He was stellar in getting his first career playoff shutout.

– Niklas Kronwall has been absolutely brutal all series long.  Saler pondered if he was maybe injured, but a physical injury wouldn’t be causing his complete lapses in judgment and decision making.  My opinion has been if he’s not going to make the smart or even acceptable play, then he should at least step up in the hitting.

+ 5 goals in 4 games for Mr. Zetterberg.  He’s playing like the Conn Smythe winner of 2 seasons ago.  This is what the Wings need, and he’s giving it to them.

+ The PK was awesome tonight.  Less sitting back than we’ve seen, I think, and they were much more active in regaining the puck to shovel it down the ice.

– That said, can we please stop with the unforced turnovers?  My God, it just gives me a heart attack every time, because I could just see a bad giveaway leading to a tying goal by Phoenix.  Thank God Jimmy was on his game, because if he’d had a similar outing to Sunday, the result would have been drastically different.

= Every time I hear Petr Prucha’s name being mentioned in the PxP, I actually do a double-take.  I’m so used to him being a healthy scratch with the Rangers under Tom Renney that it’s weird to hear that he’s actually playing.

= Poor Helm was told to stand down by the ice after the game for the three stars, but it was actually Pavel who was the 3rd star, not Helm.

+ Speaking of Helm, he led the team with 7 hits.  Stuart was next with 6.  Franzen and Datsyuk each had 4.  It was good to see them pick up the physicality, and use it effectively.  Hits were 43-27, Detroit.  43!

= Mickey York totally called Crosby “Sidney the Kidney” during the intermission.  I don’t know if he was going for Sid the Kid, and then realized he’d said Sidney, but whatever.  It amused me.

+ It wasn’t a perfect game for the Wings, despite the shutout.  It wasn’t one of those brilliantly executed games where they just outplay their opponent in every regard.  But they ground out the must-win, from goaltending up to the top lines.  And that’s all that ultimately matters.

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The only plus from Game 3 was Shane Doan getting upended by Jimmy Howard and crashing into the boards, and going out for the remainder of the game.  Except even in the long run, the Coyotes seemed to step it up after it was heard that Doan wasn’t going to return, and the Wings let them.

They really shat the bed on this one, and I’m too irritated to write much more than that.

I WILL say, however, that I am not on board with any of the calls to bring in Osgood.  Look, I’m a huge Osgood supporter, which is no secret around here.  And yes, Jimmy hasn’t been stellar.  He’s let in bad goals both in terms of difficulty and in terms of timing, at least one per game.  But it’s not like the team up front has bailed him out much.  What does annoy me is that he’s letting in softies that, were is Osgood, everyone would be screaming to pull him from net.  If Ozzie had allowed a goal 29 seconds into the game, I know for certain my Twitter feed would have blown up with anti-Osgood tweets.  Jimmy’s getting the benefit of the doubt, I assume, because it’s his first ever playoffs.  At least that’s how I’m looking at it.  The thing is, he needs to make those imperative saves.  And if he doesn’t shore up tomorrow, then yeah, I’ll be wondering if Osgood shouldn’t get his fair shot.

Let’s. Go. Red Wings.

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ok, don’t get me wrong, i’m glad we won
but i wish that the entire game had been like the last 5ish mins

The Wings were flat for the first period and a half.  But guess what?  I couldn’t care less.  They won.  We won.  They cranked it up and played like the 2008 Detroit Red Wings rather than the 2006 Detroit Red Wings.  They get to go back home to the JLA with one win, and we got 7 goals and free curly fries courtesy of Mr. Zetterberg.  I’ll take it.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Henrik Zetterberg (pp; Filppula, Kronwall); Pavel Datsyuk (Franzen, Holmstrom); Valtteri Filppla (Bertuzzi, Ericsson); Justin Abdelkader (unassisted); Henrik Zetterberg (Bertuzzi); Valtteri Filppula (pp; Stuart, Kronwall); Henrik Zetterberg (EN; unassisted)
Phoenix: Keith Yandle (Hanzal, Vrbata); Wojtek Wolski (unassisted); Matthew Lombardi (Doan, Wolski); Shane Doan (Fiddler, Morris)

– I don’t exactly understand why the Wings thought that playing the dump-and-chase for the first period and a half was going to be effective, but they did.  And it made me want to tear my hair out.  It was like watching the 3rd period of Game 1 all over again.

– We can thank Dennis Larue for the even, consistent, and unbiased officiating.  Because when Sami Lepisto drops his stick, we all know that’s actually a slashing penalty.

+ I’m convinced that the Wings turned it around mid-way through the 2nd period because I changed my shirt.  Hey, whatever we think works, right?  Hell, I’d change my underwear every intermission (yeah, I was totally going to say “every period” but, ah, poor choice of words there) if it would mean the Wings played like they did the second half of the game.

+ On a more serious note, hey, wow, look what happens when you start winning faceoffs, possessing the puck, getting secondary and tertiary chances, and hitting people.

– The 2nd period reminded me of a trend from last year’s SCF games against the Penguins when the Wings would score, and then allow Pittsburgh to score immediately after.  Can’t get caught celebrating your goal still after the puck drops again–and they seemed to rectify that in the 3rd.

+ It was nice to see the Wings really wake up after Filppula’s first goal.  Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Flip, Lidstrom were just very ON from that point on, and the pace of the game completely changed.  The three forwards had 6 SOG a piece, and each scored at least a goal.  This is what Detroit needs from their top 6.  Is that the flip of the switch that we’ve been waiting for? (Get it?  Flip?  Filppula?  ’Cause he scored the goal that…oh… nevermind).  Speed can kill a team, and from about the 10 minute mark in the 2nd, it felt like the Wings were just taking it Phoenix, fast and furious.  The turning of the tide was punctuated by the fact that Detroit did not allow a Coyotes’ goal mere seconds after Flip’s.  Keep the pace uptempo and fast, and they’ll continue to “turnstile” the Coyotes, who can’t keep up.  That was the best hockey I’ve seen the Wings play all season, and that’s the team that will rip Phoenix to shreds.

+ Holy Justin Abdelkader, that puck strip and goal was shades of Datsyuk.  I was on the fence about replacing J-Wills with Abby, since quite frankly, there were other players who didn’t play up to par in Game 1, but I can’t deny that having his physicality injected into the lineup helped.  He got the goal, 2 SOG, and 5 hits in 8:27 TOI, and went 6 and 5 in the faceoff circle (54.5 win percentage).  In short, he completely outplayed Kris Draper, statistically.

– Shane Doan is still a massive jerkoff.  Just sayin’.

+ I never thought I’d say this, but I was never more relieved when Versus ended their coverage of the Blackhawks/Predators game in time for the 2nd and 3rd of the Wings/Coyotes game.  Rick Peckham and Daryl Reaugh actually have done a very good job on the broadcasts, and Reaugh also gets bonus points for managing to talk about the long change in the 2nd without sounding like a complete douche, ala Eddie Olczyk.

I am now trying to figure out how I can get my ass down to Phoenix for Game 5… we’ll see how that ends up working out.

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+ Firstly, the Wings had a pretty strong 1st period.  20 shots on goal, it was a virtual shooting gallery out there.  The downside is that Bryzgalov was doing his best impression of a brick wall, but I felt like the Wings took the play for most of it.  Yes, it was a bit more scrambly than I would have liked to see, but they seemed alive.

Brian made a valid point that Phoenix was a team that has had a lot of off-ice issues with ownership, who absolutely sucked last year, and who is playing in their first playoff game in how many years?  Of course they were inspired by the home crowd, and translated that into their level of play.  I realize that you really just hope to walk away from the road series with one win out of two, but I would have liked to have seen it in Game 1 rather than Game 2.  I don’t believe that you’re “supposed to lose” Game 1 on the road.  These are professional athletes, and this is their job.  Get it done.  Give me visible, tangible proof that the Wings are hungry and bitter to win in the postseason.

- Special teams are what demolished the Wings last night.  I don’t know what happened to the solid penalty kill, which was one of the few highlights this season for a time, but it certainly wasn’t there during the game.  The Wings allowed all 3 of Phoenix’s goals on the power play.  Conversely, Detroit only scored once on the PP, out of 7 opportunities.  That’s not good.  Detroit might live or die by special teams this post-season, so I hope that gets turned around quick.

- Was Henrik Zetterberg playing with anyone?  Who were his linemates?  For all I know, it was a snail and a sea urchin, because I certainly didn’t see anything out of Bertuzzi, other than when he got shoved over standing in front of Bryzgalov (seriously Bert, you’re gigantic; you shouldn’t be falling over like a leaf in the wind), and I occasionally spied the fabulous flowing locks of Valtteri Filppula.

– Shane Doan is a douche.  I never minded him before this season, but now every time I hear someone talk about how great it is that he’s made the playoffs, and how no one deserves it more, and how he got snubbed for the Olympic team, the more I want to roll my eyes and point to a highlight reel of his dirty hits.  Color analyst Darryl Reaugh made the interesting comment early in the game of “there’s a lot of hitting to hurt in this game.”  Yeah, and a lot of it was done by Doan.  He brought the physical play, yes, but not in a clean way.  I’ll be looking to see if the refs crack down more on it, or if they let it go.

– To that point, the Wings need to be more physical.  Kronwall needs to step up and Kronwall someone (I nominate Doan).  Stuart dished out a hit here or there, and Helm was bouncing around like a pinball, but I’d really like to see guys like Bertuzzi, Cleary, and Datsyuk get in on the physical play.  When Datsyuk is hitting guys, it usually means he’s riled up, and that he’ll have a ridiculous game.

+ I don’t think Holmstrom’s ever even had possession of the puck that far away from the net before in his life.  What a bomb.

– Were there any snakes thrown at ALL?  Pathetic, Phoenix fans, pathetic.

– I cannot believe that the high stick on Lidstrom didn’t get whistled for a 4 minute double.  I believe that’s what they call in basketball, a “flagrant” foul.  I saw Nick Lidstrom get whacked in the face by a Phoenix player’s errant stick, him bleeding on the bench, but apparently neither referee did, given no penalty call.  That should have been 4 minutes, no question.  Say what you want about conspiracy theories, or tinfoil hats, that’s clearly bullshit.

= Howard didn’t stand on his head, nor did he have a complete meltdown.  The defense didn’t aid him very much, particularly during the kill.  He looked a little shaky at times, like on the Yandle goal.  But it was his first career playoff game, you can’t expect him to play like a veteran, even if he’s seemed like it during the regular season.  We all know the playoffs are a completely different animal.

And I’m already stressing to the high heavens.

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