Preseason Game 5:Because It Wouldn't Be a Preseason Game Without 7 Total Goals Scored

Detroit 0 Chi 1; 10:46 in 1st period- PPG Kane from Toews & Keith

The Wings are on the penalty kill here and are set up in a box defensively. The circled Wing, Ryan Johnson, has Patrick Kane pinned along the boards here. The puck is farther down the left side boards, and Ericsson comes over to support.

Ericsson chooses a poor time to hit someone, as he pushes the Chicago player into a teammate, pinning him behind the play. This effectively isolates two of the four Detroit defenders on a player without the puck, leaving the actual Chicago puckcarrier with a clear path to the net.

Toews drives the net and somehow spots Kane trailing. Toews displays great vision here, and Kane wrists one past Conklin.

Detroit 1 Chi 1; 15:36 in 1st period- PPG Brunnstrom from Nyquist & Smith

First thing to note here is that the Wings are on a 5-on-3 powerplay. Chicago's set up in a triangle to defend. The three Wings of note in the play are circled above. Smith starts with the puck and is easily able to cycle it down low to Nyquist thanks to the Chicago defender who's taking away the passing lane to the slot.

In the black circle above you can see that Keith may be close to his man but he's in poor position to stop Brunnstrom from getting a stick or, in this case, a skate on the puck. Nyquist shoots one towards the slot area that bounces off Brunnstrom's skate and in for the Wings' first goal of the night.

This screencap doesn't add much but close up replays are bad ass.

Detroit 2 Chi 1; 19:21 in 1st period- Miller from Conner & Emmerton

Chicago has numbers here as Emmerton stickhandles at the side of the net. One of Chiacgo's D-men is watching Emmerton, while the other waits by the side of the net to either make a play on the guy behind the net or move over and take away the slot.

Here's where Chicago makes their mistake. The three defenders lowest in the zone are all looking behind the net. The defender higher up and farthest left in the screencap is looking up ice at the Detroit players entering the offensive zone. No one has accounted for Miller as he enters the high slot.

Conner puts a perfect pass on Miller's stick, and Miller wrists one in.

Detroit 3 Chi 1; 8:08 in 2nd period- Brunnstrom from Emmerton & Smith

Emmerton carries the puck out from behind the net and sweeps it across the creaase to Brunnstrom. I have no idea what the Chicago defender is doing in front of the net. Cutting off the passing lane to the slot area? Looks like it, but there's no Wing there to take the pass away from. Works out well for the Wings though, as Brunnstrom is able to camp out down low unattended.

The puck hits an unsuspecting Brunnstrom's stick and bounces off of it and back towards the middle of the crease.

Brunnstrom is able to get his stick on the puck and pull it back across the crease on his backhand. In the above screencap he's switching to his forehand. Crawford doesn't have time to make any lateral pushes back across, and does his best to get his right pad and stick outstretched. It's not enough, as the above screencap shows the closest Crawford gets with either. No need for another picture here; Brunnstrom scores his second of the night to give the Wings a two goal lead.

Detroit 3 Chi 2; 9:37 in 2nd period- PPG Seabrook from Keith

Let's take a look at the strategy the Wings are using on the penalty kill. It looks like they're in a box formation, with the top two guys playing low and closer to the net. This gives Chicago's point men more room to operate, something that takes on an additional level of risk when used against offensively gifted defensemen like Keith and Seabrook. In the above screenshot, Keith is making his pass to a ready-to-one-time-it Seabrook.

Detroit's still set up well. The gaps aren't terrible and everyone is covered (at least, they are if the Wings strategy is to collapse. If it isn't, then that statement doesn't really hold true).

Detroit 3 Chi 3; 1:29 in 3rd period- Smith from Keith & Leddy

Keith dumps the puck in from the blue line. It hits the endboards and takes a strange bounce. Conklin can't control it, and the puck heads towards the left faceoff circle.

Smith scores this while falling down. That doesn't easily lend itself to analysis. All I can really say here is that the entirety of the goal is a fluke, one of those weird "puck luck" things that just doesn't go your way.

Detroit 3 Chi 4; 8:58 in 3rd period- PPG Hossa from Kane & Toews

The Wings are trying to kill a 5 on 3 power play here and are in the triangle to defend. Problem #1- there are two guys trying to cover the puck carrier here. When there are only three defenders on the ice, that doesn't add up to positive things happening for the Red Wings. Miller decides to chase the puck carrier, and this leaves the entirety of the ice above the faceoff circles uncovered. I like Miller and love the way he plays, but I don't know what he was thinking here.

That whole open ice thing I just mentioned? That'd be it. Hossa gains the zone with speed and there's no chance any Wings defender can do anything to alter his shot. Chicago goal, game over.

Preseason Game 4: Killer Hands, Bert

The Lidstrom-led Wings played another split squad preseason game on Sunday, this time against the visiting Blackhawks. The "white" squad from training camp played for the Wings in a game that was a tale of two sides. The Wings' offense looked to be in regular season form, but the defense was shaky at best and downright scary at times.

Detroit 1 Chi 0; 7:35 in 1st period- PPG Filppula from Lidstrom and Zetterberg


Chicago's set up in a box on the penalty kill. There's nothing exceptional to note yet.

Lidstrom starts with the puck near the left side of the blue line. As he slides towards the middle, the Chicago defender moves with him. The Wings' other defenseman moves down the right side boards, baiting his defender into sliding down with him. This movement of Chicago players has opened up a huge area of open ice (red box above).

Lidstrom passes to Filppula on his left, who walks the puck into the open area in the slot. Franzen does an excellent job of screening the goalie, who can't see Filppula's rising wrister.

Detroit 2 Chi 0; 19:13 in 1st period- Zetterberg from Franzen and Filppula

A great breakout pass through the neutral zone is for naught as the puck is just out of Filppula's reach. The puck bounces off the left side boards, and Filppula is able to corral it around the blueline.

Filppula uses a spinning backhand pass to get the puck to Franzen, who's entering the offensive zone with speed along the left side. Two strides into the zone he's created an irreversible amount of separation between himself and four Chicago defenders.

Gotta love alternate angles. You can see here that the Chicago player is able to get his stick on the ice in front of Franzen's shot. The puck hits the stick and bounces straight up, eventually landing behind the net to the goaltender's left.

Franzen is able to regain control of the puck and finds a streaking Henrik Zetterberg near the goal (Z's the one on the right side that looks like a ghost. Very seasonally appropriate). Z puts one just under the crossbar on the far side of the net for the goal.

Detroit 2 Chi 1; 7:32 in 2nd period- SHG Pirri unassisted

The puck is stripped from the Wing carrying into the zone, and Franzen isn't able to pick it up. Instead, Pirri gets ahold of it, turns, and sprints up the left side.

This goal doesn't lend itself to analysis. The Wings defenders backcheck and are in good position, but Pirri's slapshot beats Howard high short side for the goal.

Detroit 3 Chi 1; 8:55 in 2nd period- PPG Lidstrom from White & Filppula

The Wings move the puck to Lidstrom off the faceoff. Lidstrom passes to White before the Chicago defender can stretch his stick out far enough to cut off the passing lane. Note that the defender is facing Lidstrom prior to the pass.

Ian White makes a tremendous pass fake towards the low slot area. This pulls Chicago's center (#16) down low, leaving lots of space for Lidstrom to operate in. White reads this and passes back to Lidstrom.

Lidstrom one times it and beats the goalie high glove side. You can tell from the screen cap that things didn't really work out for #16 in white.

Detroit 3 Chi 2; 16:01 in 2nd period- Hayes from Smith & Pirri

Chicago gets the puck off a Detroit turnover in the neutral zone. At this point the Wings are in a good defensive position. Both Chicago skaters are being covered by one of the Wings' D-men.

Kindl skates hard towards Smith and gets embarrassed when Smith stops hard. Abdelkader comes down to help but Smith stickhandles around him. That leaves 2 Wings defenders completely out of position, and an unchecked Chicago player open in the left faceoff circle. Smith easily gets the cross ice pass off to Hayes.

The player circled in the screencap is Ericsson. He's done a good job of sticking with his man throughout the play, but at this point he's so far off the the goaltender's right that he can't recover in time to do anything about Hayes having the puck. Hayes goes backhand-forehand-backhand, enough to bait Conklin into dropping to the ice and exposing the top of the net. Hayes shoots high and scores.

Detroit 3 Chi 3; 9:33 in 3rd period- Pirri from Hayes

Brendan Smith brings the puck out from behind the net, but a Chicago player gets a stick on it right before Smith can make his clearing pass. It's hard to see in the screencap, but that's what's happening in the red bubble. This is a Wings turnover dangerously deep in their own zone.

There's a little bit of puck luck involved here, as somehow the puck ends up directly on a Chicago player's stick. Now there's a 2 on 1 directly in front of the net, leaving plenty of room for Hayes to pass to Pirri.

Commodore covers this really well. He stays square to the shooter, so I don't place any blame on him for the goal. Pirri snaps one from the slot and beats Conklin to tie the game.

The game ended up going through an overtime period and into the shootout. Here's how the shootout went:

Franzen- save Pirri- goal Bertuzzi- goal Frolik- save Zetterberg- goal Saad- save Bertuzzi's goal was a thing of beauty. Looks a lot like the move Pavel used on Bryzgalov against Phoenix in round 1 of last season's playoffs. If you haven't seen it, you've got to watch the video here. The Good Valtteri Filppula- Flip was a tremendous offensive weapon in this game. His passes were sharp and he generated not only numerous scoring chances, but was rewarded with a multipoint game. It's nice to see him exhibiting the skill that we've heard about and, at times, seen for the past few years. Moving him to the wing may have been a stroke of genius by Mike Babcock. The Bad The Wings' breakout passes- Too many times the Wings not only watched their breakouts fall about, but saw them turn into quality scoring chances for the Hawks. I'm sure they'll work out the kinks here but turnovers were an issue in this game.

Red Wings v.Chicago Blackhaws 10/8/09

After what can only be described as a disappointing performance in Sweden this past weekend, the Wings return to the friendly confines of JLA to host the Blackhaws in the first home game of the season. Though the Blackhawks will be without newly minted public enemy no. 1 Marian Hossa until November, they still feature a potent offense that has been quite impressive so far in this young season.

Red Wings offense v. Blackhaws defense:
The Wings haven't exactly been anemic offensively thus far, but there are facets of the offense that need some major work. The powerplay (2-10 through two games) has once again disappointed, and the Wings have indicated they'll work on this coming into the game against Chicago. It is likely that the powerplay will be a big factor in this game. The Hawks are trying to play a more puck possession type game (essentially mirroring the Wings), and what with the Wings also trying to play puck possession this could turn into a game that's determined on the PP. The Hawks defensemen are good puck movers and are pretty mobile defensemen, so the Wings will need to be careful on the forecheck not to get caught out of position. With that having been said, the Wings offense is still a better unit than the Hawks defense. The Hawks defense, while serviceable, is not yet an elite unit while the Wings have two elite lines and two very good lines.
Advantage: Wings offense
Blackhaws offense v. Wings defense:
The Blackhawks essentially play like a bunch of over-caffeinated monkeys: they play uber up-tempo, for better or for worse. Granted, I've never seen over-caffeinated monkeys play hockey, but if I did I'm pretty sure it would resemble the Blackhawks. Perhaps the biggest story of the game is that the Hawks will be without turncoat Marian Hossa. This really shouldn't have much impact on the game, as Wings fans saw in the playoffs how well Hossa plays against previous teams (i.e. he pulls a disappearing act). Having said that, the real concern for the Wings is containing the Hawks super young superstars Toews and Kane. Luckily, the Wings have two tremendous d-pairings to match up with Toews and Kane whenever their lines are on the ice. I'd expect Lidstrom and Rafalski to shadow Kane and Kronwall or Stuart to shaow Toews. The biggest mismatch is probably with the Hawks second line and the Wings second defense pairing. Kronwall and Stuart are very physical but are questionably mobile, while Toews and linemate Patrick Sharp are very quick and shifty scorers. If Kroner and Stuart can rub the Toews line off the puck then the Wings should be in good shape, but if the defense is overly physical they could end up getting burned.
Advantage: Hawks offense
Wings goaltending:
Shaky at best in Sweden, the Wings will look to regroup on Thursday. Osgood will likely get the start here after only playing one of the first two games of the season. He's vowed not to repeat last year's lackluster regular season, and one game isn't enough to pass judgment on. There's no reason not to believe in Ozzie at this point.
Blackhawks goaltending:
Cristobal Huet assumes the number one starter spot after Khabibulin departed this offseason. The Wings have seen him many times before, so there really shouldn't be any surprises here. Huet has played well enough thus far. How he'll fare against the Wings is largely a product of how well the Hawks can keep the Wings out of their own zone
Very well thought out, totally analytical score prediction:
Wings 3 -- Hawks 2