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?

Screw the preview.

R. S. V.

Homer’s out 3-4 weeks with a fractured foot, per Khan.

I knew it was too good to be true, that we were starting to get people back and soon we’d have a full roster again.  Fluke accident during practice.  Seriously.

So the big news that’s already been flying around the blogosphere and the Twitterverse is that Zetterberg and Cleary are making their glorious returns to the lineup.  And for the first time in what feels like an eon, there will be two complete top lines, that actually look like top two lines.  The circus is in town, and Flip and Dan(ny) will be playing with Bertuzzi.

Ville’s in the press box, along with the true leader of the team, Brad May.

In an odd turn of events, Babcock has chosen to play Jimmy Howard tonight against the Kings, rather than follow his pattern from earlier in the season where he swapped goalies after a bad game.

That was the best game the Wings have played this calendar year.  And now that I’ve stated the obvious, I was thrilled to see that they followed up a good game on NYE versus Colorado with another strong outing.  Maybe the ship’s turning in the new year.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Tomas Holmstrom (Lidstrom, Rafalski); Tomas Holmstrom (Lidstrom, Datsyuk); Pavel Datsyuk (pp; Bertuzzi, Rafalski); Darren Helm (EN; Stuart)
Phoenix: Matthew Lombardi (Lang, Yandle)

Pluses:
+ The Draper-Helm-Eaves line was the best out there, along with the top line.
+ Textbook tip-ins by Holmstrom on his two.  They’re always talking about other players being great at net-front presence, but Homer is still the ultimate player for that position.
+ I am hoping, hoping, hoping that the fact that Pavel has scored 2 goals in the last 2 games means he’s starting a streak.
+ Even Helm couldn’t miss this time on the breakaway, with an empty net.

Even:
= There was really nothing to be done on the Phoenix 5 on 3 goal.  It was, admittedly, a beautiful play.

Minuses:
- Terrifying moment almost halfway through the first period, when Howard had abandoned the net for the extra man on a delayed call, and the Wings missed on a pass an almost scored in their own empty net.
– Stop stealing Nick’s goals, Tomas.  He needs them.

First and foremost, congrats to Ozzie on his 50th career shutout.  He made some huge saves.

Secondly, congrats to the Detroit Red Wings, for not following this trend.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Henrik Zetterberg, (pp; Datsyuk); Tomas Holmstrom (Datsyuk, Bertuzzi)
Boston: none

• Doug Janik was called up from GR to fill in for an ill Rafalski and played a decent game.  He had 13:56 in 18 shifts, with 2:09 on the PK.  He wore Samuelsson’s old #37.  Babcock “thought he did a real good job, was real stable. I thought he was good on the penalty kill.”
• I said on Twitter, “Other than when he got pasted against the boards twice in the beginning of the game, I haven’t noticed Leino at all.” And even then I probably only noticed because he’d lost his bucket on the hit.  It’s certainly irritating to see players like Helm and Maltby come back on fire after being scratched and to not have Leino respond in a similar fashion.  He needs to step it up, and take hold of the opportunity granted to him with Filppula out.
  
• Detroit was outshot 26-29, and lost the faceoff battle 36 to 25.  The win (and shutout) is more important, but they need to do better in the faceoff circle.
• It’d sure be great if Versus wouldn’t cut immediately to a commercial when a penalty is called.  I like to see the play, and also hear the call from the official.  Matt from On the Wings pointed out that someone watching a game for the first time, or a casual fan won’t ever learn anything if they can’t see why the calls are being made.  Football always shows the announcement of the penalty.  Instead, Versus just leaves us to trust that the play-by-play guys will get around to mentioning it, or that you’ll pick up the call from the arena announcer.  Pathetic.
  
• Z’s goal was great.  Pavel technically lost the faceoff, but Zetterberg just pounced on the puck and whacked it in.
• Datsyuk assisted on both goals, the second a gorgeous little backwards pass to Homer, who was trailing.  After coming back from his upper body injury on 10/22 in Phoenix, he’s 2-8-10 in 6 games.
• Holmstrom’s apparently now scored a goal against every single team in the league.
  
• The Bruins have been a little anemic lately, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this was a good effort by the Red Wings.  There are, of course, things to improve upon, but when you look at the lineup that played yesterday, well, I’m not going to complain too much.

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This showed up in the mail today and has me bouncing off the walls in anticipation.  I’m going to get to see the Red Wings at least 4 times this year due to an East coast swing, and that makes me very happy indeed.

Well that was a nice win.  I miss seeing the Mule out there.

Goals were as follow:
Detroit: Ville Leino (Cleary, Filppula); Jason Williams (pp; Kronwall, Filppula); Holmstrom (pp; Datsyuk, Rafalski)
Washington: Matt Bradley (Poti, Gordon); Brendan Morrison (pp; Ovechkin)

Some thoughts (most of these I also Twittered during the game):

• I liked seeing the Eurotwins back together, even if they only joined for one goal, which was on the power play.
• Bertuzzi skated with them even-strength rather than Holmstrom, and I wonder if it’s because he’s slightly more mobile than Homer.  Only slightly.
• Speaking of Bert, he had another decently defensive game, and made a nice effort at the end of the game.
• Osgood gave up a softy at the beginning of the game, but other than that he looked good.
• The defense played much better in front of him this time, though there were still a lot of giveaways–15.
• On the plus side, Detroit had 9 takeaways.  3 of those were by Datsyuk,who, I’m pretty certain had a few more than that.
• Pavel was defensively all over it tonight.  He made a lot of amazing plays.  Including stripping the puck from Ovechkin a few times, the other play that really stood out for me was when he backchecked all 200 feet of ice and attempted to sweep the puck away from Washington as he was clearly gassed.
• Who knew that Holmstrom could wire a shot like the one he scored on?
• Meech made a dumb, dangerous play, slamming Quintin Laing headfirst into the boards.  With the attempts being made by the league to cut back on that kind of hitting, I’m surprised that he got away with a 2min boarding call.
• On the bright side, that penalty kill was incredible.  I loved how they managed to set up what looked and felt like a power play for several seconds.
• Mike Green and Alexander Semin had 2 penalties apiece for Washington, 2 of which led to the Williams and Holmstrom goals.
• I liked how Valtteri Filppula opted to loft the puck into the air over the Caps defense with about 30 or so seconds left in the game, rather than try to shoot it down the rink.  He either would have gotten an empty netter, or at worst, iced it.