Big Red Machine

I hate that stupid Fratellis song, “Chelsea Dagger.”  It makes me want to put a dagger through my eardrums, and I had to hear it 4 times this afternoon.

This game made me feel like an untreated manic depressive, almost entirely within the third period alone.  The first was pretty bland, the second was fantastic, and the third was just a mish mash of wild mood swings.  Matt had a great tweet that sums it up awesomely:

1st: ugh. 2nd: sweet. 3rd: ughwowyikesholycrapnoyesawesome.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Brian Rafalski (pp; Lidstrom, Zetterberg); Nicklas Lidstrom (Filppula, Bertuzzi); Jason Williams (Zetterberg, Rafalski); Valtteri Filppula (Bertuzzi, Miller); Pavel Datsyuk (unassisted)
Chicago: Duncan Keith (Seabrook, Kane); Andrew Ladd (unassisted); Andrew Ladd (Johnsson, Madden); Andrew Ladd (Keith, Madden)

- The Wings allowed Andrew Ladd his first career hat trick.  That says enough.  I mean, really?

- Afternoon games are ridiculous.  This game started at 11:30am local time.  No wonder the Wings looked asleep on their skates for the first period.  Quite frankly, I can’t even remember them getting 9 shots on net in that duration.

- Jimmy.  Please work on your rebounds.  Thanks.

+ Lebda actually does look like he’s been playing better with Lilja, interestingly.  He actually looks like an NHL defenseman.

- Almost immediately after I thought that, he overskated the puck, and forced Filppula to try and get it out, which resulted in a bad turnover and a Chicago goal.  As it turns out, going to Notre Dame doesn’t actually mean anything when it comes to hockey smarts.

+ The Wings really woke up in the second period.  I was half paying attention for a bit, working on some H2H stuff and being exasperated with how the game was going, when I realized that goals were going in at a rather alarming rate (in a good way).  Huet had a meltdown, unsurprisingly, and I’m wondering if the Blackhawks are wishing they’d picked someone up at the trade deadline.

+ Five unanswered goals by the Red Wings in the second period.
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Just pure dominance by the Wings, and Pavel’s goal was an exclamation mark on the period.  The Wings proved to Chicago that they still have a long way to go in order to challenge Detroit’s position as alpha in the Central division.

+ On that note, Rafalski looked more like his Team USA/Olympian self rather than the pinching, turnover prone Rafalski of the majority of the season.  Good.

= Speaking of, whereas Datsyuk’s been pretty jacked since getting back from the Olympics, Zetterberg has seemed a little… off.  He didn’t have a very good Olympics, and that seems to have spilled into the re-start of the season.  I hope he resolves it soon, be it an injury or just being snakebit.

+ The Wings… we… they had a goal called off against them.  That is to say, in their favor.  I’m pretty certain I thought the Apocalypse, the Rapture, and the End of the World As We Know It was nigh.

– Bertuzzi apparently sustained a charley horse and left the game at some point (I want to say it was towards the end of the second period).  He had maybe one of the worst periods of play I’ve ever seen.  Pierre and Olczyk were just ripping on him.  But Bertuzzi came back with a really strong second, making plays and tallying two assists.  And immediately they start gushing about him like he’s the savior of the game.  Sigh.  Sounds like the injury isn’t very serious, and here’s to hoping he’ll be back in the lineup for Tuesday’s matchup.

– Pierre’s comment that Piet Van Zant was on the bench looking at a hurt Pavel made me almost scream NOOOOOO out loud.  Not even kidding.  Thankfully he was just stung with a blocked shot off the foot and came back after testing it during a TV timeout.

– After that ridiculous offensive output in the second period, the Wings promptly gave up a goal early in the third, and then another about half way through for Ladd to complete his hat trick.  Really, after the five goals in the second, this really never should have come down to a 1-goal game.  Curse of the three- and two-goal lead, I suppose.

+ I can’t remember exactly why, but Marian Hossa was whining to the refs about some call or another that didn’t go his way, and my entire Twitter feed, no joke, went “Shut up Hossa.”

+ Kronwall really had the save of the game.  There was a wide open net for the Blackhawks and he just planted himself in the crease to sweep the puck out, and then blocked the second chance.

+ Another incredibly important win, and 2 points in regulation.  Even better, two fairly strong outings in a row.  Can they keep it up?  Can they make it three in an extremely important game on Tuesday?

The Flames won against the Wild tonight, making them 1 point back of the Red Wings.  Nashville, having lost today, it only 1 point ahead.  It would not be hyperbole to say that Tuesday’s tilt is the most important game of the season so far.  Bring the killer instinct, put the skate down, and don’t let up, boys.

It’s Festivus!

And part of the traditions of celebrating Festivus is the “Airing of Grievances”–a declaration of how you’ve been disappointed by those in your life the past year. We may be only 30+ games into the season, but I’ve still got enough grievances to share…

Chris Osgood: You really let me down, Chris. I’ve been in your corner for a long time, defending your ability to actually be a number one goaltender, and then you go out for your first start in like, 40 games, and can’t even save the marshmallow-soft goals from 50 feet out. I know that’s typical for you, but you swore up and down during the summer that this season wouldn’t be like the last one, and that you’d be mentally ready this time around. Well sorry, Chris, but I didn’t see it in Sweden, and I haven’t seen it recently either, when Jimmy has been pushing you to improve your game. I thought after losing last season you would come out on fire, ready to prove your critics wrong once and for all, and it’s sorely disappointing to see otherwise.

Ville Leino: When Kenny went out and picked you up for pretty much nothing, we all crowed about how we got the Finnish Elite League MVP, laughing that we weren’t going to end up like the Dallas Stars, winners of the Fabian Brunnstrom sweepstakes, who has since failed spectacularly to live up to expectations. You were being lauded for your offensive capabilities, and in your first NHL game you scored on that beautiful spin-around backhand. I thought that you were well-suited to pick up some of the slack in terms of scoring. Last year you threatened to return for Finland if you didn’t get a spot with the big club, so when you did, I assumed that meant you were ready to roll. But you’ve clearly proven me wrong with your inability to finish, refusal to skate hard, and utter indifferent attitude.

Brett Lebda: You are not a forward, Brett, you are a defenseman. Please stop moving up with the offense on the rush.

Brad May: At the beginning of the season it was a novelty to have a pugilist back on the team, and you fought like 5 times in your first 5 games.  But now it’s just getting silly, with the most glaring example being that of the “fight” with Kry Barch of the Dallas Stars.  You’re supposed to “keep the flies off,” but I have to say that I haven’t seen much of that recently.

Kirk Maltby: Same goes with you, Malts.  Sometimes you look like a real NHLer again, like at the start of the season when you scored a shorty, had some chances, and got a few points.  Now you’re back to floating around and occasionally blocking lanes and shots.  You’ve given Detroit a lot, and they’ve given back by keeping you on the roster.  But you are slowly being replaced by Justin Abdelkader.  Please don’t overstay your welcome.

Todd Bertuzzi: You know, Todd, I honestly can’t find too much fault with you right now.  You’ve backchecked, and hustled, and now you’re finding chemistry with Pavel to regain that scoring touch.  So I just have one grievance with you, and that’s to please, for the love of all that is holy, stop with the spin-o-rama.  I understand that you scored with it earlier this year, but I know, deep down, you were just as surprised as I was to see that puck actually go in the net and not sailing wide.  But why don’t you just put that move away for a while–you don’t want to become Brian Campbell.

Jonathan Ericsson: It’s not entirely your fault, kid.  Part of it was the inevitable letdown from a strong playoff performance by a rookie defenseman to figuring out the grind of the regular season. But I was disappointed to see very little to none of the confidence and poise you exhibited in the post-season.

Pavel Datsyuk: Yeah, Pavel, you.  Until recently you simply haven’t looked like yourself out there.  I didn’t see the usual Pavel Datsyuk that we’ve been privilege to the last several years.  Where were the Datsyukian Dekes and the dangle dangle?  I’ll be honest, I was getting very close to being frustrated with you.  I know, I know, notoriously slow starter, you had some problems finding a good stick, Bertuzzi couldn’t finish on an open net, whatever.  I’m glad you seem to be getting things going now, there was a time when I was Not Very Happy with you.

Well, those are my grievances for the year so far.  Feel free to share yours in the comments.

The Red Wings also share some of their grievances with each other at the Freep, which are honestly pretty hilarious.

What about the “Feats of Strength”?  Well, news has arrived that Rafalski may not play due to the flu, so for the Red Wings, their feat will be trying to beat a largely complete Blackhawks club, with an insanely depleted roster.

As for the rest of us?  Well, our feat of strength will likely have to do with how long you can deal with abdominal pain from the dry heaves as you cling to the toilet bowl all afternoon.

I didn’t post any thoughts or comments on that absolute crap-show that was Tuesday’s game against Buffalo because to be honest, I didn’t really have any at the time other than, “Well that sucked.”  Majorly.  Probably three players on the entire team bothered to show up at all.

Defense needs to shore up, immediately.

DetNews:

“We haven’t played well defensively,” Lidstrom said. “We haven’t played that well in our own zone. That’s something we worked on today a lot in practice and we know we have to correct.”

But let’s not dwell on past wrongs and failures.  Because there’s a whole slew of brand new grievances and causes for worry!

Pavel’s out, Lebda’s in.

There goes any attempt at playing better team defense for now.  Khan’s also got the lines for tonight.

Also, another must-read from The Chief over at A2Y.

Time Warner is the current bane of my existance, having outages over my area in Brooklyn, so I’m hoping I can catch the game one way or another…

I don’t think anyone was expecting that.

Seriously, do you think the Blues really thought they would return to the US with two regulation wins over Detroit?

Some other thoughts:

• Let’s just hope that being in Sweden was a bigger distraction than anticipated.  We all know Kenny Holland wasn’t hugely in favor of opening overseas, and perhaps this is why.
• Brett Lebda was positively brutal both games.  I hope he’s scratched for the home opener.
• Detroit, for all the claims of being better defensively, has rather sucked.  They’ve allowed 9 goals in 2 games.
• Comparatively, they’ve scored 6.
• I severely dislike this continued trend of falling asleep or having a meltdown in the second period.  Twice they blew leads, which lead to unanswered goal streaks by St. Louis
• Last season at least we could console ourselves with the fact that we had the best power play in the league.  Now both special teams are doing their best to fail.
• I can only hope that Osgood’s poor outing was due to his “flu-like” symptoms being worse than originally thought–he claims he’s fine. Because I’m not sure I can stomach it if both our goalies play like this all season.
• Lidstrom says the loss leaves “a sour taste” and Babcock thinks they were outplayed physically.  Cue declarations about the Wings being too soft.

I really don’t know what else to say–maybe I’m still a little stunned. I just have to keep telling myself that they’re not going to continue these trends against Chicago in a few days, another division rival.

Let’s take a quick poll:

Is anyone concerned that the Red Wings have only won 2 out of 7 pre-season games thus far? And that they’ve dropped the last 5 consecutively?

I’ll be honest: it’s a little disturbing to see the same trend that plagued the Red Wings last year rear its head again. That trend was playing 20 to 40 minutes of a game, usually either starting slow or falling asleep in the middle, and cranking it up in the third.

The goaltending I’ve seen so far also hasn’t done a whole lot to inspire confidence. Howard has been what I expected–inconsistent and not extremely solid. Larsson looked to be fighting pucks a bit the two games I’ve seen him in. McCollum looked nervous in the one I saw. Pearce has yet to play, as far as I’m aware, which is a little odd since he hasn’t been cut, either. Greg Eno wrote a piece on the promise Osgood made to never have as season like 08-09 again, and to be better prepared this year. Oz isn’t looking awesome so far. He’s certainly not playing like he did just a few months ago during the Finals, but does anyone really expect that? He knows this is pre-season, and he’s not going to blow his groin out to make a save now. But I think he’ll be ready when the puck drops for real. I believe in Oz.

What concerns me more is the defense. I watched the game they played against the Leafs on Friday, and while they iced mostly regulars, it was not Red Wings defense that I saw. Kronwall’s played about 4 or 5 games, but he still looks like he’s figuring a few things out. As is Ericsson, but that’s more expected given that he’s had fewer years of experience. Meech and Lebda are absolutely killing me and I fear for the third pairing on the back end.

Babcock knows all this, but still he’snot freaking out–too much:

“You always wonder, ‘Geez, what’s going on?’ But you just watch and see how things go.”

And Kirk Maltby makes a blindingly obviously, yet still astute comment that basically sums up what they need to do:

“…we need to start getting into regular-season mode now and not wait until a month into the season.”

The WSJ had an article today that I read via Deadspin that gave me pause. The topic is ballhawking, a practice that, at its most basic, consists of catching landmark home runs and then hardballing the players who want the ball back for their own collection.

Mr. Coghlan had no idea there was such a thing as a ballhawk and was surprised by the intensity of the negotiations. Mr. Yohanek “wasn’t the most polite or respectful guy about the whole process,” Mr. Coghlan told the Palm Beach Post. “He told me he goes around a lot and catches these balls and holds them for ransom.”

For his part, Mr. Yohanek says, “I knew I’d be able to ask for something in return….I wasn’t going to give the ball away for nothing.”

I understand wanting to get a signed ball back in return from the player, but the idea of demanding memorabilia signed by other players, or money, is astounding.