Big Red Machine

Not content to merely take the starting goaltender job from Chris Osgood this season, Jimmy Howard has also taking it upon himself to steal all of Ozzie’s dreams, one at a time.

Today he was invited to take batting practice with the Tigers (along with Draper, Miller, Chelios, and McCarty), and got to catch a few balls in the bullpen from Justin Verlander.

If you’ve ever read a Helene St. James profile piece on Osgood, you’ll know that one of his “dream jobs” after retiring from hockey is to be a bullpen catcher for the Tigers, in addition to the Mayor of Plymouth, and a spokesperson for Bowflex.

And now Howard’s gotten to the bullpen first, it seems.

Bill Roose:

Verlander, who threw a no-hitter in 2007, praised Howard’s natural ability behind the dish.

“He did a really nice job, especially with breaking balls,” said Verlander, who is 5-4 with a 3.75 ERA this season. “I thought that he would be really good with fastballs, because there isn’t much movement, similar to a puck. But then the breaking balls, he did a much better job then I anticipated. He caught all of them, and that’s not easy to do.

“You see most guys who haven’t caught a breaking ball before and it catches them off guard. He did a great job, but it’s not surprising though; he catches 100-mile-per-hour pucks.”

Well… I don’t know about the mayorship of Plymouth, but I’m sure there’s an opening for a late-night infomercial spokesperson for Bowflex.

I wanted to post up my three stars of the series for the Red Wings against the Coyotes, and kind of pick up again on this little weekly feature that I had done earlier in the season…

#3: Jimmy Howard
You gotta hand it to the kid. His first ever playoff series, and it goes to Game 7, and he walks away a winner.  Sure, he let up some softies at some bad times.  Sure, he didn’t stand on his head every single game, or really steal a win at any point.  But he also didn’t completely lose a game, and that’s the most important part.  He got the benefit of the doubt from me this time.  He also bounced back in a huge way after flopping in Game 3 with the shutout in Game 4.

#2: Nicklas Lidstrom
Nick showed us in Game 7 that he’s not done yet, in which he doubled his points for the post-season thus far.  But what the stats don’t show is that he’s still an amazing shutdown defenseman, and still better than a Norris Trophy candidate this year *cough*mikgreen*ahem*.  He got his job done, played big minutes, and took zero penalty minutes.

#1: Henrik Zetterberg
If you ask me, Henrik Zetterberg was just made for the playoffs.  He only scored 23 goals in 74 games for a 31% scoring rate.  This round he had 6 goals in 7 games, with 2 GWGs.  That’s absurd.  Hank lifts his game to a completely different level this time of year, and it shows offensively.  Not to mention, he’s also still a defensive force, the only player other player along with Stuart who is +6.  He’s looked like the Conn Smythe winner of 2008.

Honorable Mentions:
Pavel Datsyuk (5-3-8, +2), Valtteri Filppula (3-4-7, +4), Brad Stuart (2-4-6, +6)

(I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that the first thing that came to mind when I started writing this wrapup was “Phoenix Down.”  Clearly I’ve been playing too much Final Fantasy in my off time.)

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.

A fun treat: the Joe Louis Arena goal horn as a ringtone.  Download it here.  I edited it down from a longer, 20 second ringtone, to the horn going off three times.  Marlon did a favor of humoring me by calling my phone so I could hear it, and it’s AWESOME.  Easily the best, most obnoxious ringtone on the face of the planet.  I’ll leave the file up throughout the playoffs.

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.

I don’t want to talk about it.  I really don’t.  That game sucked in more ways that I know how to express.

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.

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.

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.

Here are my picks for the Red Wings’ stars of the week for 1/25-1/31

#3: Nicklas Lidstrom
Nick shifted to a completely different gear this week, going 3-3-6 and +2.  Two of his goals were on the power play.  And he’s continued his rock-solid play on the blueline, as pretty much the only defenseman right now who’s actually playing his position, and doing it well.  By, you know, defending, and not getting skated around like a pylon.

#2: Pavel Datsyuk
Pavel’s stats mirror Nick’s with 3-3-6, except no power play goals. But he pretty much took it upon himself, with Nick, to produce the Wings’ offense this past week.  No question he’s been the best forward for the Wings, and against the Wild he looked like he wanted to drag them to a win on his own.

#1: Jimmy Howard
With poor defensive outings almost every game this week, Jimmy held them in the game.  He faced 47 shots against the Penguins, and even though he didn’t do very well in the shootout, he still only let in 1 goal in actual play.  The game before in Nashville he saw 48 shots and let in 2.  He hasn’t looked as tired, and really gave the offense the opportunity to win.

Sometimes I don’t get this team.  Sloppy game all around and yet we still walk away with the win.  Whatever, I’ll take it.

- For a textbook example of lackadaisical defense, see the first period.  Horrible.   The D got walked around a good 3, 4 times.  They had 18 giveaways, and most of them were egregious.  Absolutely giftwrapped.  The Wings should be thanking the Hockey Gods that the Preds had hands of cement.

+ Jimmy stopped 48 shots, and as many have already said, it was shades of the Kings game in which he faced 51 shots.  He was helped out by a lot posts and again, the Preds’ being unable to take advantage of the several defensive breakdowns that the Wings had.  But he still came up big when called upon, and looked a bit less tired than he had been.

+ Nice goal by J-Wills in his first game back, with his stick down on the ice to pick up the Miller tip right in front.  Sadly, I couldn’t remember what number Jason Williams wears. It took me a good 30 seconds to realize who #29 was.

+ Stuart with ANOTHER save right at the goal line.  That’s at least the 4th time he’s done that this season.

+ Nick is seriously cranking up the offense.  And Pavel is still on a hot streak.  If they can keep it up, watch out.

+ Power play success!  Williams and Lidstrom scored on the PP, and Miller was just mere seconds after the penalty expired.  The Predators took 4 penalties in a row and I had been hoping that the Wings would take advantage of them.

- Of course, then the Wings took 4 penalties in a row, and I swear when Rafalski took that late penalty I wanted to throw myself out the window.  The first thing I thought was GEE, THIS SURE IS FAMILIAR.

- The dreaded 2 goal lead, and when they blew it at about the 6 minute mark in the 3rd, I about died.  Mick had made jokes about 2 goal leads earlier, and I wanted to strangle him.

- I hate that Nashville has a guy on their team with the name Franson.  It confuses me, and then I’m immediately sad.

- Drives me crazy the way the Nashville players came charging over after Kronwall hit Smithson. Kronner knew it was a bad hit, and he stood back, but his teammates come sailing in with no regard to Smithson on the ice.  Similar to when Kronner destroyed Havlat.  Dude, have some respect for your teammate; you have no idea how injured he is.  A guy could be concussed, or worse, and jostling him around on the ice isn’t going to help any.

+ Filppula got stung with Shea Weber’s rocket of a shot and limped off to the bench. Thank God he was back the next shift.  I don’t think I could have dealt with another injury.

Tomorrow (12:30, ugh) the Wings take on the Penguins.  I hate the Penguins and I want to destroy them.  And we still need points, so let’s go, boys.

First off, I’ve been kind of terrible about blogging this week, but several things have chosen this moment to take over my life.  This late, the recap is kind of a moot point, but oh well.

This was a game that I mentioned on The Obstructed View that I was looking forward to this week, since the Kings have managed to surprise quite a few people with their play, and are poised to make the playoffs if they continue strong.

When I was thinking about this game, I pondered the idea of Quick, who was selected as the 3rd goalie for the US Olympic team, versus Howard, who was also in the running and obviously not picked.  The fact that my brain immediately found nothing wrong with assuming, days in advance, that it would be Howard vs Quick is really indicative of the goaltending situation in Detroit.  Sorry, Oz.

- Apparently it’s all Lebda’s fault that Holmstrom’s foot is broken.  Way to go, Brett.

+ It was imperative that the Wings won this game in regulation to prevent the Kings from gaining a point.  Prior to the game the Kings were 5 points ahead; now they’re 3.  The Wings have got to gain ground against Western Conference teams if they want to be in control of their post-season chances and not leave it to fate that a team of ahead will have a second-half meltdown and fall out of the standings.

- Murph pointed out that it’s all Swedes who are injured, plus Williams.  All of the Swedes except Lidstrom have been on IR at some point this year.  That terrifies me.

+ Welcome back to the lineup, Dan(ny) Cleary.  He took over Homer’s role, planting himself in front of Quick, whacking it in with 0.2 left in the first period.  See boys and girls?  Good things happen when you go to the net.

+ My God was it good to see him and Zetterberg back out on the ice.  Zetterberg didn’t really do a ton, but he’s getting a pass for now because just having him out was a relief.

+ Cheers Rafalski for saving an almost goal by Ryan Smyth, who had a wide open net earlyish in the 2nd

+ Wings had a great PK on the Datsyuk interference call.  The Wings seemed to get about as many chances on the PK as the Kings did with the man advantage.

= Howard had a ridiculous game, in more than one sense of the word.  On one hand, he was played pretty scrambly, with a few too many snow-angel saves for my comfort.  He had quite a few poor rebounds and would have been scored on due to his turnover early in the first of Rafalski hadn’t bailed him out.  I feel like most of the mad flurries in front of the net were because he either didn’t stop it in the first place, or didn’t control the rebound well.  He almost gave me a heart attack several times.  And sorry, but I don’t know what he was thinking on the Kings goal–trying to catch the pass I suppose, but he left the left side wide open for Ryan Smyth to pop it in.

On the other hand, he was lucky to the point of obnoxious, stopping the 27 shots that the Kings put on net in the 2nd.  He lost his stick at one point, was scrambling and sliding around, everyone was in the crease, and he still managed to save them.  He had the luck of I don’t even know what.  I realize you make your own luck by playing well, but I’m really with Matt on this that I’d prefer to see him more settled and in control of the puck.  At the same time, 51 is really effing incredible and there’s zero questioning that.  There are no points for style, as long as you get the job done, and by god he did.  My blood pressure would probably improve, though.

I’m not just ready to proclaim him the Messiah, yet.  Another note, putting aside the idea that Osgood needs/wants starts so that he can get on a roll, how about giving Howard a rest?  He’s starting against San Jose in what will be his 8th straight.  He’s young and he’s got the Olympic break to rest, but he’s still got potential for burnout.

- The Kings controlled the majority of the game and put 57 shots on net.  57.  That cannot happen.

- Did Leino play?  I don’t really remember seeing him at all.  This also may be because I watched the Yahoo feed, which was terrible quality, but I simply couldn’t tolerate listening to the Kings announcers.  But really, I think I didn’t notice Leino because he didn’t contribute to the game whatsoever.

+ Darren Helm is my Hero.  The key was that he zipped up the ice to not allow Quick to play the puck, gained possession, and whacked it in.  With a couple of minutes remaining, I wrote on Twitter, “Shit, we need 2 in regulation here, boys. Can’t afford to give LAK anything. We can’t afford OT, do you hear??”.  I’m convinced that message was transmitted directly to Darren Helm’s brain and then he scored.