Big Red Machine

About 5-10 minutes into this game I thought to myself, SOG are 5-0 Detroit. If they can keep this up and not lay back, we’ll win for sure. Well fuck me, because while they kept it up for most of the game, they had a magnificent third period meltdown that let the Capitals score 2 and walk away with the win.  Boudreau called it “men vs boys” and it was, for 55 minutes.  But those 5 minutes where the Wings just stopped moving their feet, and stopped concentrating did them in.  Washington had no business winning that game.

+ Washington with zero shots on goal up through 14:22, and the Wings had 13.  Great for the defense to shutdown the highest scoring team in the league like that.

+ Kirk Maltby. What a ballsy, or maybe stupid move to block an Ovechkin shot after losing the bucket. Jesus Christ.

+ “Don’t give the guy the puck. I want to keep the puck.” Pavel on Ovechkin during the interview. His English also seems much improved, even from last year. He’s a great interview, and I wish that he’d be on more. I don’t know if he just declines, or if media just doesn’t bother to ask him. He’s pretty flippant with most of his replies, and it’s refreshing from the canned cliches.

– I had suggested that Pavel would at least get a point, since he’s done well against Washington in the past, but he was held off the scoresheet.

+ What an individual effort by Dan(ny) Cleary.  He had a great shot, Theodore saved it, Cleary picked it up again for a backhand and in.  Awesome.

– PP really regressed tonight.  Matt suggested that they were sitting back a bit in an effort to support Osgood more than they had been doing with Howard.

+ The Perfect Human made a perfect play to save a goal on a wide open net in which Oz had completely vacated the front.  Pavel saved him again on another play later in the second.

= Speaking of, Oz was REALLY aggressive, coming out to challenge shots.  Almost a little too aggressive.  It’s a good thing that the D has played well in front of him, bailing him out a few times.  Look, the guy didn’t stand on his head, but it wasn’t his fault entirely that they lost, either.  I know several of the Osgood haters out there are screeching for Babcock to nail his ass to the pine and never play him again, or trade him immediately.  But there was fail on every part that led to the Capitals mounting a comeback.  Could Osgood have played better?  Yes, of course.  Did he lose the game for the Wings?  No.  The Backstrom goal I am planting squarely on Bertuzzi (and Stuart, who got turned inside-out), and the Steckel goal ricocheted in.

– But still, I’m a little stunned to read that he told McCosky “I’ve gotten him a lot of points, you can write that… I got him to the Stanley Cup Finals the last two years, you can write that, too.”  Shut up, Oz.  We know you have the most playoff wins in DRW history, and yeah, you did take us to the Finals twice in a row and won two seasons ago.  But this is a whole new ball game right now, and you need to start caring like it’s the playoffs, because right now there’s no guarantee we’ll even be in the post-season at this rate.  I’m not going to argue that having a whole month off is a little questionable, but if you want to play again any time soon, criticizing Babcock to the media is not going to help your cause.  I’ve been in the Pro-Osgood camp for a long time, but Shut Up, Play Well, and then you can open your mouth again.  *deep breath*

– I will say, the Bradley goal?  Come on, Jonny E, can’t stand around like a pylon and wait until he goes past you before you start backchecking.

+ Is Rafalski warming up, too?  He’s 2-1-3 in the last 3 games.  He wired a shot from the circles for the go-ahead.

– Major meltdown in the third.  The Wings controlled the entire game up until about halfway through the third, and then they just rolled over.  I’m sick and tired of this Jekyll and Hyde act, of not seeing a 60-minute effort, and tired of feeling like they don’t even WANT to make the post-season.  Every chance they’ve had to leapfrog in, they blow it.

– Final SOG 46-23, and yet it’s a 2-3 loss.

+ Ovechkin was held shotless, but he did get an assist.  Looking on the bright side, here…

– ….I miss the Mule.

I guess the big news is that Osgood is getting his first start in 12 games.  I know a lot of people have jumped on him for whining, but if you read the articles by the beat writers as they filed, he explains himself at least a little better…

Khan:

“At the start of the year Howie didn’t play for about a month and then I didn’t play for a month. To me that’s not a good way of doing things, to let one guy get stagnant,” Osgood said. “You have to have both guys going, especially with the amount of games we have, especially coming back after the Olympic break we have a ton of games in March. So we have to have two guys in case something happens.’’

McCosky:

“I am just going to play,” said Osgood, who has played 31 minutes in the last 12 games dating to Dec. 20, but was to start Tuesday against the Capitals. “I’m not going to think about how I wish I would’ve played earlier. Howie has played great, but you don’t want to not be playing for that long a time.”

St. James:

“I think when I’ve played, I’ve played good, but I haven’t played for 12 games,” he said. “That’s not my decision, I can’t do anything about that. All I can do is practice. I don’t really think about it too much any more – I just practice and when I play, I play. Do I want to be sitting out 12 games? No, that’s way too long. But that’s not my choice. Howie and I don’t have those decisions to make – we just go out and play and try and play well and Howie was playing well, obviously. But you have to have both guys (going), and that’s important going down the stretch here. I’ll be ready for the playoffs – that’s so far away still.”

Anyway, it’s still not really an excuse for him–I’d rather him shut his mouth and just prove it all with his level of play.  He can run his yap all he wants when he stands on his head and steals a game.  And sorry, Oz, but the playoffs aren’t even guaranteed at this point.  I do, however, think he has a valid point that it’s questionable to be letting a guy get stagnant, and that it is important to have both your goaltenders in some sort of a groove.

That aside, the Wings are coming off that insane 3-4 shootout loss against the Blackhawks, and the Capitals beat the Flyers on Sunday 5-3.  So far this season the Western Conference has beat up the Leastern Conference (with the odd exception of Buffalo), and it sure would be nice to see that trend continue.

Maybe it’s the challenge of playing against countryman Alex Ovechkin, but Pavel Datsyuk always seems to get up for these games.  He is 4-10-14 in 8 games against Washington, and I recall him having an incredible defensive game back in October.  On the other hand, Ovechkin is 4-2-6 in 4 games against Detroit.  Can Pavel start a scoring streak tonight?

Verizon Center is notorious for some of the worst ice in the league.

Who I’m looking at to have a good game: Osgood, for obvious reasons, and Ville Leino, who is finally coming down from the press box.

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.

The Red Wings played their first pre-season game tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers.  I didn’t get a chance to watch, or listen, but the final score was DET 3, PHI 1.  Goals by Draper, Jamie Tardif, and Jeremy Williams.  James van Riemsdyk scored the lone goal for the Flyers.

With pre-season underway, it can only mean one thing…

Hockey season is almost here.

I’ve got tickets to the Red Wings @ Rangers pre-season game on the 21st, and can hardly contain myself at the first chance this year to not only see the Wings, but also see some of the prospects.  The only prospect I’ve seen play (beyond Helm, Abdelkader), is Jordan Pearce, when he was at Notre Dame.

As a Red Wings fan stranded in New York, I’m actually going to be able to see the Wings play in person quite a few times this season.  They are making their way to the Tri-State area for back to back games in December against the Devils and then the Rangers, which I have tickets for.  And they’ll be back to play the Islanders in January.  I’ll also likely make the trip to Washington for that game a couple of weeks after they visit the Island.  And if I’m lucky, I’ll catch a game in Columbus and/or Detroit.

Drop the puck already, I don’t think I can wait any longer.

Alexander Ovechkin made an appearance at the NHL powered by RBK store in New York City (47th st. and Avenue of the Americas) today to promote NHL 2K10. He made a grand entrance by driving a zamboni down the block on the Avenue of the Americas.

I snuck out of work for about 15 minutes so that I could get a glimpse of him. Here are the photos I took (click for larger, all photos © Ellen Manuszak):

Sergei Fedorov defected from what was then the USSR in 1990 to join the Detroit Red Wings. He is the all-time highest scoring Russian player with 483 goals and 1179 points. He won the Hart Trophy, Pearson, and Selke awards in one season, another Selke, and owns 3 Stanley Cup rings. In his prime he was one of the fastest skaters in the game, exploding from end to end.

After 13 years with Detroit, Fedorov has spent time in Anaheim, Columbus, and most recently Washington. Now, with his future status with the Capitals in question, there are reports that he may return to his homeland to sign with the KHL’s Magnitogorsk team with play with his brother Fedor.

Via TSN:

It appears Sergei Fedorov is ready to leave the Washington Capitals and play in the Kontinental Hockey League next season.

Citing sources in Russia, RDS.ca is reporting that Fedorov is about to agree to a two-year deal with Russia’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk.

The report indicates the two-year contract will see Fedorov collect $3.8 million per season.

Craig Custance of Sporting News has a great blog post on how European (specifically Russian) superstars reaching their twilight years leaving for the KHL will affect the NHL and the younger players coming in. Jagr left to play in the KHL at the start of this season and Richard Zednik has just signed, and now there are recent reports of Fedorov and Viktor Kozlov also planning to sign with KHL teams. Custance has a well-put quote from Detroit netminder Chris Osgood, who played with Russians Fedorov, Igor Larionov, Slava Fetisov, Slava Kozlov and Vladimir Konstantinov.

“To lose those guys is huge. We have to figure out a way to keep guys like Sergei and Jagr and those great older veteran players, have them over here and find roles for them,” Osgood said. “I think it’s important to have older guys like that, that younger European players can look up to when they get over here and understand how to handle themselves on and off the ice. That’s what guys like Igor Larionov did for him.”

Fedorov played that role to perfection in Washington where he was a great veteran influence on players like Alex Ovechkin and Alexander Semin. When we spoke to him during the Pittsburgh series, he really seemed to enjoy the role and was energized by it. Fedorov can still play, and I’m with Osgood. It’d be too bad if we don’t get to see it.

And Detroit benchmaster Mike Babcock, who coached Fedorov in Anaheim, was also asked about the report in his off-day presser:

Sergei has had a great career. I still think he can play in the league. I think he can play in the league here as a defenseman for sure.

For Fedorov in particular, this is an interesting possibility. Scotty Bowman often threw Fedorov on defense back during the days of the Russian Five, and while he did so begrudgingly, he did it well. Bruce Boudreau also had Fedorov play on the blueline a few times during this season with the Washington Capitals. And while he is not as quick as he used to be and doesn’t quite have the old scoring touch, he would be very valuable on certain teams as a puck moving defenseman. He would still be able to provide his veteran experience and personality to the dressing room without feeling pressured to score goals.

I agree with Custance and Osgood that it would be a tremendous loss for the league if Fedorov left for the KHL. He was a big part of the movement of Russian players to the NHL, which has opened doors for younger players like Ovechkin, Malkin, and Semin. It would be a shame if he returned to play in Russia for more money.