Regular Season Game 3: What a Riot

1st period:

Nothing

2nd period:

Detroit 1 Vancouver 0; 8:37 2nd period- Abdelkader (1) from Bertuzzi (1) & Kronwall (1)

The Wings start with a 3-on-2 break. The defensemen are in position, and there's help defense coming in the form of a Canuck backchecking.

Datsyuk drives the net, effectively isolating one of the two defenders. The other has to play off Bertuzzi, leaving him room to make a play. Bertuzzi has a cross-ice passing lane that is about to be taken away by the aforementioned backchecker. He makes the split-second decision to pass.

Abdelkader has the puck in close with a large gap between himself and the closest defender. Schneider can't get his pads on the ice in time and Abdelkader puts one through the five hole. I could write something about Abdelkader beating Schneider in 07 to win the National Championship but...nah. After the UM-MSU game and the Spartans gross lack of sportsmanship I have no desire whatsoever to promote MSU in any way in any sport. Sometimes there's an advantage to writing these a few days after the (Wings) game.

Detroit 2 Vancouver 0; 10:55 2nd period- Filppula (1) from Franzen (1) & Hudler (2)

The play starts to form as Filppula carries from the middle towards the right side boards. The Canucks defender makes a lunging attempt at a poke check and ends up pulling himself right, back towards the middle of the ice and the other defender.

Slightly out of position and woefully out of balance, the Canucks defender has a DERP moment and basically falls over. He's also acting as a screen, holding back the other defender. There's all kinds of room for Filppula on this play, and he drops the puck back to Johan Franzen as he enters the zone.

Typically you'd expect the Mule to shoot in this situation, but even he couldn't ignore how great a scoring chance Filppula had created here. Franzen passes back on the give-and-go, and Filppula has a wide open left side of the net and turned around defender to work with. Schneider tries to get across laterally and take away the open near side, but Flip puts the shot over his glove.
3rd period:
Nothin'.

The Good:
Jimmy Howard- He was both sharp and very fortunate. There were two near-goals for the Canucks, the closest coming as time ran out in the 2nd period and the puck rolled across the line after the clock hit :00. Sometimes all you need is a little luck.

The Bad:
Detroit's powerplay- 0-16 on the season. Anything else I write here would be words wasted.