Big Red Machine

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.

Quick note on the Swedish Olympic roster which was just announced.  Lidstrom, Kronwall, Zetterberg, and Holmstrom have been named to the team.  Noticeable snub?  Mikael Samuelsson.  According to @sportsnetmurph (host for Canucks’ broadcasts), his reply to that was:

“I’ll probably regret saying this, but they can go fuck themselves.”

Right wings who were picked over Samuelsson were Daniel Alfredsson (injured), Loui Eriksson, and Frederik Modin.

I’ll be honest, I sort of zoned out halfway through this game.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Tomas Holmstrom (pp; Zetterberg, Datsyuk); Henrik Zetterberg (Stuart, Kronwall); Niklas Kronwall (EN; Howard, Stuart)
Vancouver: Mason Raymond (pp; Bieksa, Kesler)

Pluses
+ Jimmy Howard.  He had a good game.  I didn’t feel confident, per se, but I also didn’t have a miniature heart attack everytime he went to make a save.  He played back to back for the first time… ever? and managed to come out with a win both times.  Granted, he could have fallen asleep in the crease against Columbus and it wouldn’t have mattered.  More importantly, he kept the Red Wings in the game in this one.  He was easily the only player awake in the first period, at any rate.  Jim’s looking like an NHL goaltender.  Sort of.
+ Brad May had a much better fight tonight against Rick Rypien, until he got his sweater yanked up over his head.
+ Very glad that Eaves was able to come back after crashing into the boards awkwardly.  Last thing we need is yet another forward out.
+ This doesn’t really fall under plus or minus, but it’s more of a plus because he didn’t suck–Drew Miller wore #20 (also worn by Luc Robitaille, Aaron Downey, and Brad May, briefly) and played fine.  I didn’t notice him a ton, which is really neither here nor there.
+ What a shot by Zetterberg.  According to Kevin Allen of USA Today, Luongo said of the goal: “Not many guys can do that, only a handful of guys in the whole league.”

Minuses
– The guys had no legs for most of the game.  It took until the 3rd to get cranking, but prior to that they looked like they were skating through mud.
– Shots on goal were pathetic.  At one point in the 1st period they were 12-4, Vancouver.  They ended the period 15-5.  The game totals were somehow 32-29, advantage Canucks.  I was afraid that the Wings had used up all their offense on Wednesday.  Through at least 2 periods both Datsyuk and Zetterberg had zero shots.  Total.  No shots on net, no missed shots, no blocked shots.
– I had to watch the CanucksTV PPV feed, and they had a 2-part feature on Mikael Samuelsson.  I get that they’re a little infatuated with the guy since he’s been putting up decent numbers, but sheesh.  Man crush, much?
– The refs sucked.  Gord Dwyer and Dave Jackson had a  field day calling weak penalties against Detroit in the 2nd.  Conversely, Vancouver only got tagged for 3 minors, even though I saw several plays for which Detroit was called.  Totally weak.

Red Wings won!  Red Wings won!  If we’re this excited about a win in October, can you imagine what Leafs fans felt like the other day when they won their first of the season?

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Tomas Holmstrom (Zetterberg, Datsyuk); Niklas Kronwall (unassisted); Pavel Datsyuk (Williams, Ericsson); Pavel Datsyuk (pp; Rafalski, Holmstrom); Jason Williams (pp; Filppula, Bertuzzi)
Vancouver: Henrik Sedin (Samuelsson, Bieksa); Christian Ehrhoff (Kesler, Bieksa); Mathieu Schneider (pp; H. Sedin, Bieksa); Henrik Sedin (pp; Edler, Kesler)

General thoughts:

• Awfully scary moment in the second period when Canucks’ Ryan Johnson lost an edge trying to side-step Lidstrom and went crashing into the boards.  Something you never want to see happen.  He was carted off on a stretcher, and reports say that he’s doing ok.
• Osgood let in a goal 30 seconds into the game.  Nikolai Khabibulin did something similar tonight against Colorado, and let in one 25 seconds into the game.  Oz didn’t do himself any favors by letting in another one around the 7 minute mark, which got him yanked.  Quite frankly, I can’t recall a time in which I’ve ever seen Oz have that atrocious of a start.  It was like he wasn’t mentally even in the building.
• Jimmy Howard did great, seeing as he wasn’t expecting to play almost a full game tonight.  Should have had the goal from Schneider, I thought.  The Sedin goal was kind of a gimme for the Canucks because it was on a 5-on-3.
• Speaking of, is it horrible that I just knew that goal was coming?
• I missed the play that led to the Holmstrom goal because my internet crapped right at that moment, but it looked like a gorgeous tic-tac-toe on the replay, courtesy of the Flying Circus.
• Jimmy needs to stop flopping around in the crease like a fish out of water after he makes a save.  It makes me nervous.  I’m anxious enough when he has to make a save, I don’t need to see him pull out the snow angel, too.
• Brad May had a nice fight against Tanner Glass, who sort of ran Brad Stuart into the boards.  It was an odd play, and Stuart went down after the hit, but I couldn’t see anything egregious.
• Bertuzzi had some good chances again, and is continuing to play well defensively.
• Filppula had yet another very good game.
• Absolutely beautiful goal by Pavel in which he undressed Ehrhoff and whacked the puck in while falling.  And he later decided on the power play that he was just going to end this, and ripped it.  A great time for him to turn it on and lead the Wings to the win (and good for my fantasy team, too).
• Zetterberg had a great breakaway chance in the first, but made little to no attempt to deke and basically shot it straight at Luongo.
• Which, incidentally, is how I feel a lot of shots have been going recently.  Maybe part of it’s playing against hot goalies, but it seems like shots have been sort of weak, and not difficult.  The Red Wings outshot Vancouver 42 to 26, and torched Colorado 49 to 23 on Saturday, but they need to put better quality shots on net as well.
• I felt exhausted by the time the game was over from yelling at the TV, and being nervous.  What a relief to get the win.
• Elliott Friedman from HNiC pondered on Twitter if Babcock would give Jimmy a run after this.  I think at most he’ll let Jimmy start in Edmonton as planned, but I would think he wants to get Oz back in a game and into a groove.
• Also from Elliott, Ladislav Smid from the Oilers apparently has swine flu.  Guess where we’re headed next?

Apologies for having gone AWOL for a short while.  Real life has gotten very busy as of late, compounded with some horrific losses by the Red Wings, and I’ve not had much time (or desire, to be perfectly honest) to blog.

Looks like there are some line changes for tonight’s game against the Canucks–Filppula’s going to pivot Cleary and Bertuzzi on the second line, which drops Leino and Williams down to 3rd with Draper:

Datsyuk-Zetterberg-Holmstrom
Bertuzzi-Filppula-Cleary
Leino-Draper-Williams
May-Helm-Maltby (Abdelkader working in).

Henrik Zetterberg is one up on Samuelsson in terms of playing against him, and would like to keep his advantage.  Some motivation for Z, perhaps?  As long as the team puts in 60 minutes of effort and comes out with a win, Z can do whatever he wants.

While I’m talking about Vancouver (terrific segue, I know), I read this bit the other day by David Staple at The Cult of Hockey entitled, “A Twit Move by Ryan Kesler.”  Basically, Staples complains about Kesler’s actions the other night against the Oilers, when he was stopped/tripped up on a breakaway, and proceeded to snap his stick in half.  Look, sure it’s a little childish of him to do that, but Kesler is just showing his frustration that he was tripped up on the play, and wasn’t awarded a power play, or a penalty shot.  It’s a passionate sport, and gee, what a shame to see a player expressing some of that passion and emotion.

Now, let’s hope the Red Wings can show some drive tonight against Vancouver.  If it takes breaking sticks, then so be it… remind us fans that damnit, you’re still pissed about last year, and you want to win.

Vancouver Province:

Samuelsson’s experience showed Wednesday in the 3-2 win over the Blackhawks. The night may have belonged to Roberto Luongo’s saves and Willie Mitchell’s hit, but it was Samuelsson who won it.

…In the third, Samuelsson deftly picked off a brainless Brian Campbell drop pass which he saw coming from Kalamazoo. He said he’s played Chicago “a million times” and knew the antics Campbell can get up to in his own end. With that takeaway, Samuelsson did what he’s done so well this year — he shot. It was his 41st shot of the season, good at that time for second place in the NHL, trailing only Alex Ovechkin.

I find this amusing firstly due to the slight Brian Campbell jab.  Campbell always goes for the slick move rather than the smart play, which is absolutely stupid to do in your own zone.  And secondly the fact that Samuelsson is second in shots in the league with 41.  The phrase “wildly inaccurate” always come to mind with Samuelsson, and if they haven’t already, Canucks fans better get accustomed to hearing announcers say “and Samuelsson shoots it just wide.”