Big Red Machine

Yeah, we probably shouldn’t have lost that.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Tomas Holmstrom (Bertuzzi, Datsyuk); Pavel Datsyuk (Bertuzzi, Lidstrom); Todd Bertuzzi (Datsyuk, Miller)
Dallas: Karlis Skrastins (Ribeiro, Benn); James Neal (Richards, Eriksson); James Neal (Skrastins, Eriksson); Karlis Skrastins (Richards, Neal)

Pluses
+ During the first period Ken and Mick commented that last season when Zetterberg was out with his wonky back, Pavel was the guy who picked up the team and carried it during that time.  And given his performance this afternoon, he looks primed to do it again.  He was determined, and looking more like his usual self, stripping the puck and dangling all over the ice.  And I’m convinced that he always has a great game if he’s hitting.  1-2-3, +3, 7 hits (!), 3 takeaways, and a ridiculous 71% in the faceoff circle (15-6).  Datsyuk usually scores in streaks, so let’s hope this is the start of one.
+ Actually, that whole line looked great.  It’s like something with Bertuzzi and Datsyuk has suddenly clicked.  That, or Bertuzzi is personally out to spite Petrella.
+ Miller seemed like he was everywhere, the entire game.  I really hope he still gets time when the injured guys start coming back.
+ Entertaining fight between MayDay and Krys Barch.  Mick was positively gleeful sounding, giggling away to himself afterwards.  The best part was absolutely the gigantic grin on May’s face afterwards.  It was the 6th fight between Barch and May.
+ Everyone finished the game healthy.  That’s pretty sad when it’s a plus.

Minuses
- Jimmy didn’t have his best game.  He was strong in the first period, but that first goal for the Stars was pretty much a wide open net for Skrastins to shove it in.  Howard’s game sort of went downhill from there.  This season he’d been much better about not letting a bad goal affect the rest of his game, but he seemed to revert to that again today.
– Helm should ask for a new pair of hands for Christmas (like Edward Scissorhands).  He gets so many breakaways and just can’t seem to get them to go in.
– We haven’t scored a power play goal since back when the dinosaurs used to roam the earth.
– The refs really pocketed their whistles towards the end of the game.  Ridiculous some of the blatant penalties they let go in the 3rd.
– The Wings outshot the Stars in every period, who were exhibiting some pretty poor defense.  Looking at the box score, we really should have won that game, but some less than stellar goaltending and defensive miscues handed us the loss.  The Wings weren’t exactly bearing down in the 3rd period.

This is going to be crazy quick because the game starts in 15 minutes.

The Wings did a great job rallying on Thursday when Zetterberg went down, so let’s hope they can continue to channel that determination.  Helm is back in the lineup.

Marty Turco’s in net for the Stars
Career stats vs Detroit
Played: 23
Won: 5
Lost: 12
Tied: 5
GAA: 2.95

And Howard has the nod for Detroit
Career stats vs Dallas
Played: 3
Won: 1
Lost: 2
GAA: 1.69

It was nice to close out the month of November with a tidy win by the Wings.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Drew Miller (Lebda, Draper); Darren Helm (Draper, Bertuzzi); Dan Cleary (Zetterberg, Holmstrom); Todd Bertuzzi (Datsyuk)
Dallas: Brenden Morrow (Robidas, Daley)

Pluses
+ Young Howard looks confident, and he looks like an NHL-level goaltender.  Maybe he’s finally realized that he is capable of playing in this league, or maybe he’s getting Zen tips from Ozzie, who knows.  And I don’t care as long as he keeps playing like this.  He’ll get his third straight start on Thursday against Edmonton, and I’ll assume he’ll get one of the starts this weekend, as it’s a back-to-back versus New Jersey, then New York Rangers.  Like a few others, I’m cautiously optimistic about Howard.  I like that he’s getting chances and getting rewarded for good play, because that can do nothing but boost his confidence even further.
+ Young Miller also has been a pleasant surprise.  I certainly knew nothing about him when we picked him up from the waiver wire, and I’m not convinced that anyone actually thought he would do much other than fill an empty slot in the 4th line.  But his goal was a relief, and the Wings seemed to settle down a little bit after it.  I remember thinking shortly before he scored that it’d be nice to see some sustained pressure on the offensive.  I know it was a questionable icing call, but I’ll take it.  He and Helm had a few strong shifts that were spent crashing and banging around the boards, and it was also nice to see Helm finally get one.
+ Bertuzzi scored, and ended the night with a goal, and assist, and +2.
+ Having Mary Turco in net for Dallas.  Maybe it was coincidence that the Red Wings played a much more Wing-like game.  Maybe they would have scored 4, or at least played that well of a game against a team other than the Stars.  Regardless, I say “Thank you,” Marc Crawford, for playing Marty Turco at the Joe.  Red Wings Nation rejoices.  Also, I wish I had that graphic that FSD showed, with the 6 goalies who all had win % below .400 against the Wings.  They flashed it twice, briefly, and because I was watching online via GameCenter I couldn’t pause.  All I know was that it made me gleeful to see that Nabokov owns a .333 win % against Detroit.

Minuses
– The power play.  Four chances with the man advantage, zero conversions.  During the power play in the 3rd (Ribeiro in the box for slashing Holmstrom), Ken Daniels mused, “nobody’s heading towards the net.”  Yeah, story of the PP, Ken.  Too much perimeter passing and shots from the outside.  The power play is clipping along at 21.3%, good for 13th in the league right now.  Guess who’s first?  Columbus.  Yes, that’s right, the Columbus Blue Jackets, who had the worst PP overall last year, now have the best at 24.8%.  I mean, I realize we lost some power on the point and all that, but come on.

So, this is a little extra snarky.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Henrik Zetterberg (Leino, Lebda); Br–(err, wait.  We’ll get to that.)
Dallas: Mike Ribeiro/Jonathan Ericsson (Just kidding.  Not really.  Oh damn, this is getting out of hand. pp; Richards, Robidas); Niskanen (Richards, Neal); Loui Eriksson (pp; Neal, Modano)

Pluses
+ Brad May won a fight.
+ Jimmy Howard was very good.  I saw him start to scramble a bit, which is something I feel like I’d seen less of over the past three games, but overall he was solid in 32 shots on goal.  I have a hard time saying any of the goals were really his fault.
+ Zetterberg was also up for this game, and his goal was a beauty, top shelf.  He extends his point streak to 4 games.

Minuses
- As I made apparent in the goal summary, a lot of ridiculousness happened.  First up is the Jonny Ericsson own-goal on Howard.  I appreciate that he went down to block the shot, but he hit the ice way too early and took himself out of the defensive play sliding past Ribeiro.  He tried to make up for it by swiping at the puck with his stick, and instead managed to shove the puck past Jimmy, who clearly wasn’t expecting that.  Congrats, Jonathan.
– Now the real meat and potatoes.   Weak calls by the refs happen every night, but this was taking it to a whole new level.  Mickey called it a circus at one point in the 3rd (and I don’t think he meant the Datsyuk-Zetterberg-Holmstrom circus), and the refs did a great job playing clowns.  Here’s the play:

What I simply cannot wrap my head around, is the concept of saying that the play was blown dead when, upon multiple replays, it’s extremely apparent that the whistle blew a good 2 seconds after Brad May shot the puck into the corner of the net, and Alex Auld sort of trapped it there with his toe.  Auld even looked at where it was, like he knew it was in the net.  Replay shows it was.  Ok, so we all know the puck went into the net.  Dennis LaRue and Stephane Auger reviewed it, and then claimed that the play had been blown dead before the puck crossed the line.  For the love of God man, how can you even think that that’s a logical explanation?

What I really can’t understand is, if Toronto called, that means they reviewed it.  So why didn’t they overrule the ref’s original call?  If it’s unquestionably in the opposite direction of the original call, they can override.  So… how come that didn’t happen, if they had replay available to them?  I can’t wait to hear the reasoning on this one.
– To be honest, it never should have mattered in the first place because the Red Wings played a pretty uninspired game through three anyway.
– Bertuzzi needs to stop with the freaking spin-o-rama.  I don’t know if he’s trying to channel his inner Savard (Serge or Denis), or if he heard that Battle of the Blades has been renewed for a second season and wants to be invited to participate, or what.  But I swear, he tried that dumb move every shift tonight.  Scoring chances created from it?  Maybe one.  Maybe.
– Someone give Brendan Morrow an Acadamy Award for his acting that he got high sticked by Kris Draper.  You’d have thought he’d been shot the way his head snapped back.