Regular Season Game 13: Tre Kronor, Tre mål

1st Period:

Detroit 1 Colorado 0; 8:54- Lidstrom (6) unassisted

Franzen gets to the puck off a dump in and puts a sharp angle shot on net. Varlamov stops the shot and pushes the rebound into the corner. To his credit, kicking the rebound into the corner is all you can really ask for here. An Avs defender falls and sweeps the puck with his stick. It ends up in the high slot....

where Lidstrom has pinched and is waiting for it. Lids has time to fully unload a slap shot that beats Varlamov and sets the tone for the night. #TPH

2nd Period:

Detroit 2 Colorado 0; 2:36- PPG Franzen (6) from Filppula (7) & Hudler (3)

Detroit is on the powerplay here, and Colorado's counter is a diamond formation. They've taken away the passing lane back to the blue line, the cross-ice passing lane, and the shot. Filppula's only option is to move the puck into the corner.

Fil moves the puck down low for Zetterberg. This pulls the net front defender away from the goal and into the corner, shifting the diamond formation. Z has 3 options available, which I've labeled according to the probability with which I think he'll pick said option. The most likely choice is to pass behind the next. The next most likely is to move the puck back up along the boards to Filppula. The least likely is to send a cross ice pass through the Colorado defenders into the left faceoff circle. Naturally, Zetterberg chooses to send a cross ice pass through Colorado defenders into the left faceoff circle.

Hudler gets the pass and quickly moves it back over to Filppula. The defense has collapsed on Hudler, leaving Fil all alone and the smart choice to pass to. Filppula has a wide open net if he's able to get a shot off quickly enough. The other item of note in this cap is Johan Franzen moving across the crease.

Filppula has an open net and takes the shot without hesitation. The puck hits Franzen's stick and changes directions, beating Varlamov high glove side for The Mule's first of the night.

Detroit 3 Colorado 0; 6:53- PPG Franzen (7) from Kronwall (3) & Filppula (8)

The Wings are cycling the puck on the power play, and the Avs are set up in a box formation. Filppula gets the puck along the boards and two of the four Colorado players converge on him. Filppula has to move the puck (and quickly). His passing lane to the closest defenseman has been cut off by the collapsing Av playing high, so to counter Fil throws one to Kronwall on the far side.

There's no one that can pick up Franzen as he cuts to the middle of the ice. The two Avs defenders that collapsed on Filppula are too far to the left to make a play on him, another defender is trying to play Kronwall straight up, and the last defender is basically floating down low with no chance of doing anything not destructive. If he jumps up to meet Franzen he either screens his own goalie or could tip the coming slapshot, but if he stays put he's camped out defending no one.

Franzen gets his blade on the puck and redirects it over the blocker-side shoulder of Varlamov. Again, no one is even close to him.

Detroit 3 Colorado 1; 8:18- PPG Landeskog from Duchene & Qunicey

Colorado is moving the puck on the power play, and Detroit is set up in a box formation (sound familiar?). Duchene gets the puck and passes behind his back to an uncovered Landeskog to the side of the net.

Landeskog shoots it and the puck gets stuck in Howard's pads. Landeskog chops and chops and chops at it. Stuart is off balance and tangled up and can't clear him from the front of the net. Ladeskog chops at it again. Chop, chop, more chop, chop, etc. Whistle? What whistle? Landeskog keeps hacks away until the puck gets loose and trickles across the goal line.

3rd Period:

Detroit 4 Colorado 1; 14:46- Cleary (2) from Datsyuk (8) & Kindl (3)

Cleary brings the puck through the neutral zone, moving left to right and drawing one of the three Colorado defenders along with him to the right side of the Wings offensive zone. Cleary passes to Datsyuk, who carries into the zone.

Datsyuk puts on the brakes and shoots from above the faceoff circle. Cleary gets inside his defender and moves towards the front of the net for rebound opportunities. There's a switch in who is defending Cleary in the above screen cap; it has now switched from the Av Cleary just passed to Quincey.

Cleary has a step on Quincey, and though Quincey steps over to make a play on Cleary's stick he's just a little too slow. Giguere gives up a rebound directly in front of himself and Cleary gets his stick on it to lift it up and over Giguere's shoulder.

Detroit 4 Colorado 2; 16:55- Hejduk from Wilson & Johnson

Colorado is on the powerplay late in the third period. Detroit is set up in the usual box formation to defend. Hejduk finds a lane and cuts inside on Helm at the top of the box. Lidstrom has the netfront player locked down (red box above), which leaves White to cover the passing lane down low and the player with the puck as he moves into the slot.

Hejduk shoots and the rebound pops out behind Lidstrom and the scrum in front of the net. Helm can't ever fully engage Hejduk and leaves him free to backhand the rebound past a sliding Howard.

Detroit 5 Colorado 2; EN Franzen (8) unassisted

There's no way that screen capping this goal can do it justice. I highly recommend clicking the link and watching it. Wings fans everywhere are rejoicing that Mule's playoff streakiness has now extended itself to the regular season. Being a streaky scorer has never been looked upon this favorably.

http://video.redwings.nhl.com/videocenter/console?hlg=20112012,2,207&event=DET651&fr=false

11 for '11 Game 3: The Franzen Five

Never has there been a multi-goal performance with a better nickname than this. The Franzen Five? Pure gold, and something I definitely did not come up with.

Franzen's five goals are naturally worthy of inclusion on a season-highlights list, but perhaps more interesting than the number of goals The Mule scored is the necessity of them in the win. A 7-5 win is terrifying from a defensive perspective, but since there's not a chance in hell I'm going to spend a minimum of 20 screen caps on Ottawa Senator's goals we really don't have to worry about that. Instead, I'm just going to analyze the Franzen Five and call it a night. Enjoy.

Franzen goal 1: 6:52 in 1st- Franzen (22) from Salei (8) and Filppula (19)
The play begins as Filppula enters the offensive zone and the defenders switch. Karlsson covers Franzen for a minute, but lets him cut deeper into the offensive zone uninhibited.



As the Senators settle into their defensive zones, it becomes apparent that no one has picked up Franzen. This leaves him in a great net-front position, with any potential rebounds easily accessible.



Filppula backhands one from the high slot that hits Lehner and bounces off his pads and to his left. Take a look at the two Senators defenders in the screen shot. Think they realized they forgot about Franzen now?



Yeah, that's a goal.



Franzen goal 2- 7:40 in 1st: Franzen (23) from Zetterberg (38) and Bertuzzi (22)

Bertuzzi carries the puck through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone. He spots Zetterberg trailing him and puts on the brakes.



Zetterberg cuts towards the net and draws two defenders with him in the process. Bertuzzi is tightly defended as well, but Franzen is all alone immediately behind him. Zetterberg sees this and makes the cross-ice pass.



Zetterberg has skated far enough into the offensive zone to make Lehner slide to his left and account for him. Zetterberg times his pass to Franzen perfectly, leaving Franzen with half of the net empty and Lehner out of position to do much about that. Franzen puts this one away for his second goal in less than a minute.



Franzen goal 3- 00:30 in 3rd: Franzen (24) from Zetterberg (39) and Rafalski (29)

We'll start this one with the breakout. Zetterberg has the puck in his own zone as Franzen starts to cut towards the center lane.



Franzen gets the pass around center ice. He cuts back towards his left around the blue line, recognizing that the Senators line change has left no one in the right faceoff circle and two defenders bunched up near the left blueline.



Franzen takes a shot from the right faceoff circle and beats the goaltender. It's pretty much as simple as it sounds.



Franzen goal 4- 7:10 in 3rd: PPG Franzen (25) from Rafalski (30) and Lidstrom (33)

Lidstrom gets the puck at the point and fakes a slapshot, instead dishing to Rafalski.



Rafalski unleashes a huge shot that hits the boards behind the net and ricochets towards the side of the net.



The puck hits Franzen's skate, and somehow that settles it down enough for him to get his stick on it.



It's a good night when pucks are hitting you in the skates and just lying in front of you, waiting to be shot. Franzen lifts this one and scores his fourth on the night.



Franzen goal 5- 19:26 in 3rd: Franzen (26) from Zetterberg (40)

There's a lot of little keep-away type plays we're going to skip here. We start with Zetterberg carrying the puck into the offensive zone against three defenders. He has Franzen waiting on his left.



The defense collapses around Zetterberg at the top of the zone. Zetterberg backhands one to Franzen, who now has the entirety left side of the ice to work with.



Franzen backhands a shot towards the empty net just before a Seantors defender dives for the puck. Franzen shoots in time to avoid the dive and scores once again.



All in all, a truly amazing performance. The only thing that might be more remarkable than Franzen's night is the fact that he only scored two more goals the rest of the regular season

Franzen out FOUR MONTHS!!!

So it looks as though Johan Franzen is going to be out for at least four months with a torn left ACL. FOUR MONTHS!!!! Ahh panic no no no. That puts Franzen out of the lineup until around the beginning of February. It'll be interesting to see who takes over his spot on the top line. No doubt there will be some major line shuffling going on before the Wings take on the Caps tomorrow. I'll update the blog as soon as I find out what these new line combos are expected to be.

The silver lining: maybe this means Franzen will be fresh going into the playoffs. Assuming we make the playoffs, of course...