Big Red Machine

Well, Trade Deadline Day came and went, and true to his word, Ken Holland was fairly quiet.  The only moves he made was to ship Kris Newbury off to Hartford for Jordan Owens, and apparently also moved Andy Delmore to Calgary for Riley Armstrong.  I know nothing of either Owens or Armstrong.

On to the game.  I DVR’d this and watched it after, but once I realized the result, it felt like kind of a waste.  It certainly was a wasted effort by the Wings.  I, along with many others, I think, thought that Monday’s game was a sign that they were ready to really make a strong push in the remaining games and win those 15 out of 20.  Apparently not.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Jason Williams (Zetterberg, Bertuzzi); Henrik Zetterberg (Lilja)
Vancouver: Livonia Native Ryan Kesler (Raymond, Rome); Alex Burrows (D. Sedin, H. Sedin); Kyle Wellwood (Rome); Sami Salo (pp; Demitra, H. Sedin); Mikael Samuelsson (D. Sedin, H. Sedin); Ryan Kesler (pp; D. Sedin, Ehrhoff)

- According to TSN, the Red Wings have had 18 disallowed or waived off goals this season alone.  EIGHTEEN.  In 63 games.  That’s 1 every 3.5 games, or a goal called off in 28.57% of games.  With 19 games left, that means we can look forward to 5.4 more goals disallowed for the rest of the season.  Hooray.

- I realized that there are no Red Wings with 20 goals on the season yet.  That’s a hideously depressing stat.  Datsyuk and Zetterberg have the most, with 17.

- Kronwall  had an atrocious game.  He was in the box for 2 Canuck power play goals, one of them 5 seconds into the PP, and he also indirectly led to another goal after he stepped on the puck and fell in the Canucks’ zone.  The defense as a whole looked sloppy and disorganized, but Kronwall looked particularly out of sorts all game long.

+ Congratulations to Mr. Zetterberg for his 200th career goal!  It was a beauty, too.  He froze Luongo, and patiently waited to shoot in a pretty much open net from the side.  Lovely.  He also tied the game at 2-2, with the last Wings’ goal before Vancouver started running away with the game.

- I felt like there was a plethora of missed passes and pucks bouncing off sticks tonight.  It didn’t help the Wings get any sustained pressure, and towards the second half of the game, it felt like they had a lot of one and done chances.

+ Lilja got his first point back as a Red Wing.

- I was honestly kind of surprised that Howard got pulled.  With the reluctance Babcock has shown to play Osgood, I expected him to stick it out.  But I guess that’s what gut-check time does, and desperate times call for desperate measures.  In this case, it came in the form of Chris Osgood.

- Who didn’t really play fantastic.  He’s an old man coming in cold which doesn’t help, but getting beat by a Mikael Samuelsson no look shot?  Yikes.  Ozzie probably figured Sammy was going to go wide by a country mile, except he actually hit the net.  Do I think he played better than Howard?  He made 10 saves on 12 shots.  Howard had 17 on 21.

- What was with all the Vancouver fans in the Joe?  I heard a lot of “Looooooooo”s through my TV.  It was annoying.

+ I love having the Mule back.  Goals in the past 4 games for Franzen.

COLORADO 2, RED WINGS 3

I made my first ever trip to the Dive last night, to watch the Red Wings play their first game back from the Olympic break against the Avalanche.  It was an interesting experience–there was a good amount of Wings fans in the building, and my section had a fairly healthy “Let’s Go Red Wings” chant going on towards the end of the game.  There were some jackass Avs fans there, which was to be expected.  In particular was the guy behind me who kept yelling, “Detroit Sucks Shit” and then trying to explain that while their team is admittedly good, you can’t argue against the city being crappy.  And there was the ever present “Red Wings Suck” chant.  Stay classy, Denver.

But there are some classy Avs fans.  Specifically, @voteforgrant, and @shellieshel and @sandyhens who joined in on Grant and my friendly wager to donate to Children’s Hospital for each of our rival’s goals scored.  Three goals scored by the Red Wings is $15, and double that for the Detroit win!  Via Grant’s Twitter:

Thanks to the Red Wings win last night, @sandyhens, @shellieshel and I will be donating $30 each to @H2Hockeytown. (Thanks @inhyung!)

Big, big thanks to Grant, Shellie, and Sandy for participating, and being classy Avs fans!  That’s $90 for Herm to Hockeytown and Children’s Hospital of Michigan, and I’ve kept my promise to donate to Denver Children’s Hospital to the tune of $10 for both of Colorado’s goals, which I will do so happily.  It’s awesome to see people willing to help out the children, team loyalties and deep rivalries aside.  So thanks again!  If there are any bloggers or Tweeps from other fan bases who want to play with upcoming games against the Red Wings between now and March 26, shoot me an email and let me know.

Some thoughts from the game (none of them very deep or insightful, as are my recaps when I go to games):

• The Wings looked good–really energetic, motivated in the first period.
• The wheels fell off a little bit in the second period, after the Franzen disallowed goal.  I didn’t really see the replay–the arena screen didn’t show a good angle–but from when the play happened, I certainly didn’t see anything egregious by Homer.  Reputation call by Fraser.
• During a TV timeout they showed each Olympic medal winner playing in the game.  Filppula got a nice cheer, Rafalski and Stastny got huge applause, and Mike Babcock was chorused with a rousing boo.
• Howard should have had that second Avalanche goal, no question.  He looked like he was caught napping a little bit, as Colorado only got 9 shots on goal in the period.
• Pavel was awesome.  He was making those brilliant little plays, and his set up to Lidstrom was a thing of beauty.  He got his bucket knocked off twice and it was kind of fun seeing him buzz around the ice looking old school, with his hair a little long and a little scruffy.
• Bertuzzi was the recipient of very healthy requisite boos every time he touched the puck.
• Lilja looked ok.  He didn’t play very much, 9:28 TOI, 1:18 shorthanded, with 1 blocked shot, 2 hits, and a -1 rating.  But he didn’t have any blatant turnovers or defensive gaffes.
• The Dive was actually very full, probably a mix of it being the first game back from the Olympics, and it being the Wings.

Well, the Olympics are over and it’s back to the regular season grind.  The Wings are sitting in 10th seed, tied at 68 points with Dallas who has the tie breaker (they had to go all the way to Goals For, strangely, and sadly, Dallas cleaned up in that department), and 1 point behind Calgary.  Colorado is is at 6th with 76 points.  Suffice it to say, it would be great for the Red Wings to start back up on the right foot and get two points in regulation.

Really looking forward to this game–I’m in Colorado right now, and will be making my first ever trip to the Dive.  Should be interesting.  Also, the Wings and Avalanche are the only teams playing tonight, the first day after the Olympics.  Neither of them had more than 1 player in the gold medal game on Sunday (Rafalski and Stastny), and Detroit had one more in Filppula who played on Saturday, along with Babcock from Sunday, but it still seems stupid that they couldn’t schedule it for Tuesday…

The Wings have a (virtually) complete, healthy lineup for the first time this season.  Maltby is officially on LTIR, and Andreas Lilja has been activated, and will play tonight.  It will be interesting to see how many minutes he logs, and also who he plays with.  According to Khan, that will depend on whether or not Rafalski rests or plays tonight.  Here are the two scenarios:

Lidstrom-Rafalski
Kronwall-Stuart
Ericsson-Lilja
Lebda and Meech healthy scratches.

If Rafalski doesn’t play, these will be the pairings:

Lidstrom-Kronwall
Ericsson-Stuart
Lebda-Lilja
Meech scratched.

I’m not going to lie, I’m very excited to see Lilja back in the lineup.  I have hopes that once he gets into NHL game shape, he will be showing some of that shut-down, stay at home defensive play that he was getting good at last year before he got injured.

Howard is starting in net.  Will he be playing at the same level he was before the break, or will his hot hand be cooled a little?  We will see…

Who I’m looking at to have a good game: If he play, Rafalski.  He was so good, both defensively and offensively for Team USA, and he needs to bring that level of play back to Detroit.  Also, Andreas Lilja, for reasons mentioned above, and Jimmy Howard, also stated.

Other Notes:
I know Matt already mentioned this, but Osgood had auctioned off a chance for some kids to come play shinny at his house and backyard rink.  They also got to hang out in his “Man Shack.”  There are a bunch of photos on Facebook, and  the Freep has a writeup of the event.

Brendan Shanahan wrote a couple blogs for NHL.com during the Olympics, with his usual wit, had this to say about Canada’s gold medal win:

Congratulations to all of the Canadian players and management, but especially my buddy Stevie Y. As Executive Director of Team Canada’s gold medal-winning men’s hockey team, maybe a nation will accept that the boy has grown up, and will finally start referring to him as “Steve.”

I doubt it. Way to go Stevie.

Red Wings hockey is almost back.  Russia got ousted today in a lackluster effort against Canada, and Sweden lost a stunner to the Czech Republic.  This means the only Red Wings remaining in the Olympics are Brian Rafalski (USA) and Valtteri Filppula (Finland), who are, interestingly enough, meeting on Friday to play for the medal game.

In 4 more days the Wings will take the ice in Colorado to play the Avalanche (a game that I will hopefully be at!).

And when that happens, we’re likely going to see Andreas Lilja play his first game in the NHL in over a year.  We will also not be seeing Kirk Maltby, who has opted to get shoulder surgery after all.  Via Helene St. James at the Freep:

Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland has told the Free Press he expects defenseman Andreas Lilja to be cleared either today or Thursday and that Kirk Maltby will have surgery.

Lilja said he still has to complete some paperwork before he is formally cleared. The Wings also need to put Maltby on long-term injured reserve, which would free up $700,000 to fit Lilja under the salary cap

Apparently there was some confusion about whether or not Maltby was actually going to get surgery, or if he was going to stubbornly decide to play the rest of the season, but the original article has been taken down (with no mention of the mistake.  Nice).  Regardless, it’s been sorted out now, and even though this clearly wasn’t the scenario Maltby, and I believe many fans, envisioned for him to end things, it’s still the smart move.  Especially now that the estimated recovery time has been shortened to 4-6 weeks, he could easily come back for a playoff run, should one be had.

It also sounds like Eaves and Holmstrom are ready to roll when the season starts up again.  So, barring Olympic injuries (knock on wood), the Red Wings should be able to ice a full lineup for pretty much the first time this season.

Oh, and Rafalski?  You better bring that level of play you’ve been showing with Team USA back to Detroit

The big new is that Leino has been traded to Philadelphia for a 5th round pick (yikes) and defenseman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen.  And apparently OKT has already been waived and will be headed to GR if no one claims him.  Interesting that Holland picked up another defenseman, which is not exactly what they need right now.  I mean, they don’t need anything with Franzen and hopefully Lilja coming back, but McLeod wonders if he could challenge Meech and/or Lebda for a spot on the team.  He’s only played 18 games this season, due to an injured MCL.

Back to Leino, my opinion is good riddance.  We’ve discussed Leino to death on TOV, and I’m perfectly happy to have him gone, and even more thrilled that we didn’t dump him for free.  Philadelphia can deal with him.  Maybe he’ll blossom into the player we all thought he had the potential to be in Philly–sometimes it just takes a different environment or coach, or maybe he’ll be as spectacular of a failure with the Flyers as he was in Detroit.  Here’s what Leino had to say about the trade via the Flyers’ website:

“Sometimes things don’t go as you plan it with your team,” said Leino. “The trade happened, and I am happy to be going to a good team like Philadelphia. I have heard a lot of good things about Philly and I am looking forward to playing and proving myself to Philadelphia. I am pretty happy about this trade.

“I consider myself a skilled player. My talent is more on the offensive side of the rink, but I would like to consider myself as a contributor in the defensive zone, too. I am hoping to produce some offense and help the team get some points and win games.”

So the Wings are ready to get Johan Franzen back, which is the single greatest sentence I’ve typed all season to this point.  Andreas Lilja also says he feels great after playing 2 games in Grand Rapids, and while he’ll likely play a few more, Holland will have to do some shuffling with the roster again in order to make room for him.

Onto the Kings.

They’re on an 8 game winning streak, having ripped it up on their road trip, and continue to be hot.  I’m tired of saying how important these games are for the Wings, but they are.  Calgary is 2 points ahead of Detroit and LA is 9 ahead so a regulation win would be huge.  The Wings need to channel the play they had in San Jose (with the exception of the first period) and just bring it.  Unfortunately Niklas Kronwall is still out with his tweaked knee.

Jimmy Howard is in net again, I believe.  I don’t have much to say other than Get. It. Done.

I’ll be watching some, and be intermittently on Twitter, but I’m having company over so probably not much from me in terms of a game wrap up.

According to Khan Kronwall will be back in the lineup tomorrow.

And, it seems that Mickey wasn’t as drunk as we thought during the Kings game, as Lilja has gone 13 days without a headache from his concussion (he needs to go 14 in order to be cleared by doctors).  Obviously this doesn’t mean he’ll be back right away, but it’s still huge news regarding his career and the state of the Red Wings’ defensive lineup.  I am thrilled to hear that he’s finally getting better.

Defenseman Andreas Lilja said he has been headache-free for 13 days and that he was told by doctors needs to be symptom-free for 14 days before being cleared. Unless he has a setback in the next day or two, he will meet with team officials this week and could return from a concussion that has kept him out since Feb. 28 of last season.

“My plan from the start was to go 14 days without headaches and I’m hitting 13 today, so we’ll see what happens,” Lilja said. “I’ll stick to that plan and negotiate after that.’’

By negotiate, he meant discuss with doctors and management when he should be activated.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I have to stick to the 14-day plan first,” Lilja said. “It feels pretty good.’’

He said he doesn’t know when he’ll play.

“It’ll be up to the coach,” Lilja said. “I feel pretty ready, so we’ll see.’’

Not to take anything away from Kronwall’s imminent return because that’s also really important, but Lilja being able to resume his career is huge, to me.  I know a lot of people don’t care for him and can’t let go of that turnover in the 2007 playoffs, but he was turning to a great stay at home defenseman and PK specialist before he got hurt.  Besides, look at me with a straight face and tell me that you’d rather see Meech and Lebda out there over Lilja.  Try me.

Finally, good news.

Well that was certainly short-lived.  We’re back out of the playoffs, sitting at 9th.

Three unanswered goals by the Kings and they walked away with the win in a “must-win” for the Red Wings.  I officially hate this season.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Valtteri Filppula (Cleary, Miller); Todd Bertuzzi (Rafalski, Lidstrom)
Los Angeles: Anze Kopitar (Richardson, Simmonds); Peter Harold (Simmonds, Kopitar); Brad Richardson (Parse, Kopitar)

+ The game started out ok.  The Kings were controlling more of the play than I’d have liked to see, but I guess that was indicative of things to come.  Flip’s goal was beautiful–he showed a lot of patience with the puck, waiting out Quick before taking the shot.

+ O’Halloran had a really questionable call that led to the Wings’ 5-3, but like I’m going to complain.  Rafalski ripped a shot, and Bertuzzi deflected it in off his knee.  I remember thinking a while back that I hadn’t seen Rafalski and Lidstrom switch it up on the blueline on the power play very much this season, but that’s exactly what they did here, and it paid off.

– I don’t know what the hell Howard was thinking by not covering up the puck right in front of him when Kopitar scored.  He made the initial save, but didn’t cover the rebound and with the Kings all crashing the crease they scored.  A bunch of people on Twitter all got on Ericsson for the goal because he didn’t control the puck in the zone which led to the turnover and the chance by the Kings.  I’m not going to disagree that it was his fault on the play, but it’s not like it isn’t Howard’s, either.  I just don’t get why Howard seems to get the benefit of the doubt on goals like that when all I can think of is, if he’s covered the puck, it never would have happened.

– And has been a disturbing trend all season, the Wings didn’t have a very strong shift after the goal and allowed the Kings to carry most of the play.

– Mickey Redmond made a comment about Lilja coming back “as soon as next week.”  I don’t know if he’s been hanging out with Murph and John Keating (who I’m convinced is actually sounding drunker than Murph, if that’s even possible) at the bar beforehand, but Holland says it’s not true.

+ Stuart’s made at least 3 amazing saves this season, and he did it again tonight.  The play went to review and shocker, we actually came out as benefiters of the call.

+ I like the Miller-Filppula-Cleary line.  McCosky thinks Miller might be sticking around a bit longer, in favor of Leino.  I would certainly like to see that happen.

+ Because I’ll never stop harping on about how I think the Western Conference is tougher and deeper than the Eastern, I was amused how Babcock said in an interview “the parity on our side” when talking about the Western Conference, rather than the parity in the league.  Babs knows what’s up.  The East is a joke, as a conference.

– I saw the Harold and Richardson goals coming from a mile away.  When Harold scored the second for the Kings, all I could think was “here we go again.”

– That being said, what the hell happened to the shutdown 3rd period that the Wings used to be known for?  What happened to the vaunted defense?  They just are seemingly incapable of putting the skate to the throat and pressing down hard on games that matter.  They know these are important, right?  Why are they able to get up for games like San Jose, which, in the long run, don’t matter in the least, but they can’t things going for teams that maybe aren’t as acclaimed, but are a current challenge?  They’re not chasing SJ, not by a long shot.  They need to stop looking so far ahead and up the standings and put aside the notion that they need to show up San Jose, and instead focus on what’s right in front of them.  Which was Los Angeles.  Until they gave them a 3 point margin.  60 minutes, boys.  Come on.

– I’ve decided I don’t like it when we score a few goals early on.  The Wings just seem to sit back after that happens, and then the opposition inevitably mounts a comeback to either win or take it to OT, both of which are entirely unnecessary.

= I read an article long ago that said when people talk about their sports teams and it’s about something positive, they tend to use inclusive pronouns, like We and Us.  When they’re complaining or discussing something negative they switch to They.  It was really interesting, and I totally see myself doing it within the same paragraph (see last point).

The Free Press recently posted an update on the injured Red Wings. I had not seen any mention of Lilja returning to practice, but David Guralnick of the Detroit News has a photo of him on the ice:

Good to see that Lilja is able to skate and is making some progress.