Big Red Machine

As I’m sure most of you were also doing last night, I watched the NHL Network air the ABC/ESPN broadcast of the 2002 Stanley Cup Game 5 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.  Gary Thorne and Bill Clement kept reiterating the star power, and the to-be Hall of Fame players.  That was a stacked team.

But it got me thinking: with the signing of Mike Modano, the Wings have really added some serious depth to the forward lineup through three lines, and the fourth is chock full of potential.  We’ve been reading and speculating about what they’ll do to solve the glut of players in the system who could all feasibly play next season.  Again, that’s an astonishing amount of depth when you can reunite the Eurotwins and then slate Mike Modano on the third line and call it a day.  This immediately reminded me of having Igor Larionov and Luc Robitaille on the third line in 2002–Future Hall of Famers at the time who, while considered to be in the twilight of their careers, still contributed immensely regardless of being lower down the chart.

Similarly, Modano was clearly thought to be done by the Stars, who chose not to bring him back.  Robitaille had 30 goals and 50 points in the 2002 season with the Wings, playing on the third line and the second unit power play, much like what Modano’s role sounds like it will be.  Granted, Modano is a center, not a winger, and I have a feeling he’ll be dishing to Hudler and Cleary a decent amount.  Still, if he can pop in 20 goals, I’ll be thrilled.

Sports Illustrated had an interesting preview for the 2002 playoffs, which is still online.  Darren Eliot took a look at all four lines, plus first unit power play, and top three defensive pairings, and offered his analysis.  As I was going through this, I kept thinking of how these line’s qualities and characteristics were visible in the current Red Wings’ lineup.  And so I present my comparison of the 2002 team versus the potential lineup of the 2010-2011 Detroit Red Wings.

Today is only the forward lines.  Tomorrow I’ll take a look at defensive pairings and the power play unit.  And while Eliot didn’t offer any thoughts on the goalies, I’ll try to draw some comparisons Monday.

Edited to add: which do you think is the “better” team, looking at the depth and potential?

This was reminiscent of Game 7–in an elimination game, the Wings really have brought it.  The question is now, can they keep it up for 3 more?  Each game from here on out is a Game 7.

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.

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.

First things, sorry for neglecting the blog for the last few days, though I’m sure not many noticed.  Due to so-called “cost cutting” and saving, my company decided to eliminate my job.  So I’ve joined the not so envious ranks of the unemployed.  It’s been interesting to say the least–vacillating between being pissed off as shit and being really motivated to find something else–better, and infinitely more awesome, where I won’t be bottle-necked.  Ahem.  Anyway, onto the game…

Are we ever going to win another game this season?  Is Chris Osgood ever going to play another game again?  Will we ever win in the shootout?  These are life’s big questions right now.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Johan Franzen (pp; Zetterberg, Lidstrom); Jason Williams (Lebda, Holmstrom)
San Jose: Joe Thornton (Wallin, Boyle); Dwight Helminen (Mitchell, Nichol)
Shootout: SJS – Patrick Marleau

= FS Detroit has started doing the digital advertisements on the back glass behind the nets now.  It was funny because there were a ton of people on Twitter who were in an uproar over people “paying good money” for those seats, only to have an ad plastered in front of them.  People, they’re digital.  They’re not actually, physically on the glass, they’re slapped on by FSD for television.  MSG has been doing them for a while, and you really get used to them and start to notice them less.  But, I can see were people are annoyed.  I don’t really care one way or another.

+ The Wings looked like they had more jump than in other games, with some more crashing and banging around than we’ve seen.  I still don’t understand why they can get up for these games against San Jose, which mean nothing in terms of tangible points and standings, but they let teams like Anaheim and Los Angeles walk all over them.  This season seriously makes my brain hurt.

+ Franzen got his first goal since coming back, the first of the game, and on the Power Play.  Shortly before that, he’d sort of whiffed on a shot and it looked like his timing was still a work in progress.  But that PP goal was a beautiful snipe over Nabokov’s glove hand.  Welcome back, Mule.

– Poor Nick, a linesman got dumped over the boards and into Nick’s lap.

= Meech gets a pass for missing on what looked like a stupidly easy shot on an open net, but upon replay it was revealed that his shot was redirected by a Shark player.  Otherwise it really would have gone in.  But he’s right back on my shit-list the minute he screws up again.

– Way to get up a goal about 35 seconds after scoring.  Not exactly the type of shift you’re hoping for after scoring.

+ No shit, Holmstrom beat out Dan Boyle to negate an icing.  Really.  Boyle must have had dead legs, because otherwise there’s no way Homer outskates him.

+ Pavel was really riled up tonight.  He may not have scored, and he did have two giveaways, HOWEVER, he was still everywhere, all over the ice, and playing physical.  He had some chances, played gritty, and was just a beast all around.  Would have been great to see him score–but then again, I want Pavel to score every single game.  Unfortunately the world and the game doesn’t work that way.  He’s still been one of the better Wings forwards, if you ask me, regardless of the lack of goals (so there, Brian).

– Nabokov is usually a sieve.  Why not tonight?  He’s usurped Turco for sole ownership of worst SV% versus the Wings.  Except today he actually had to play fairly well.

+ Williams had a pretty little toe drag on his goal.  I bet you he gets traded tomorrow.  According to Ken Daniels, Holland is definitely making a roster move before the Olympic freeze, and I’ll just bet it’s Williams.  Maybe he just upped his market value?

– I friggin hate the shootout.  We’d have several more wins if it weren’t for finishing the game in such an artificial way.

Kronwall’s out against the St. Louis Blues.  Eaves says he’s “doubtful.”  Holmstrom might not be in, either.  Down 2 fowards and a defenseman.

But I don’t care right now because Johan Franzen is making his glorious and hopefully triumphant return to the lineup tomorrow.

Giddyap.

I’m not going to freak out, I’m not going to freak out, I’m not going to–

Oh hell.  I’m freaking out.

Via John Hahn in the Red Wings’ Communications department:

Red Wings forward Johan Franzen has suffered a torn ACL in his left knee and expected to be out of the lineup a minimum of four months.

Matt Saler over at On the Wings followed the news as it broke on Twitter.

This is so not good.  As much as I scoffed at the MSM’s idea that Detroit can’t deal with the loss of 88 goals gone with Hossa, Hudler, and Samuelsson, this might be detriment.  Franzen has been projected as a 40-goal scorer this season, and not having that production for 4 months will be felt.  Just to twist the thorn a little more, keep in mind that it’s a minimum of four months.  Which means who the hell knows when he’s getting back.

With this turn of events, the Red Wings are really going to have to rely on Zetterberg, Cleary, and Filppula to improve on their scoring.

–EDIT 5:45pm–

Abdelkader has been called back up and Babcock is playing around with line combinations.

Let’s consider the possibilities… the interesting thing here is that Babcock can shuffle guys like Zetterberg and Filppula between wing and center.  I have a feeling he’ll move Filppula up to the top line to replace Franzen, but I’d love to see him put the Homer-Z-Dats line back together.  Unfortunately, with the loss of Franzen, he’ll be even more concerned with spreading out the offense across multiple lines.