Wings v. Canadiens in review 11/21/09

The Wings won the game, but they lost Nicklas Kronwall to a knee injury. The only good thing about falling behind on these In Reviews is that I now know that Kronwall will be out 4-8 weeks (bad) but Laraque will be suspended 5 games for the hit (good). Also of note in this game was the Canadiens throwback unis. Honestly, not the best one they've got. The best part, though, has got to be the gloves. Seriously. Whoever decided to wear tan gloves that look like leather is a genius and should be promoted. I'd love to see the wings do that. How cool would it be to watch them channel Gordie Howe and wear tan gloves with jerseys featuring the retro crest, that weird scrunchy curvy winged wheel.

Detroit goal (1-0) 12:41 in 1st period; PPG Stuart from Cleary & Lebda:

Stuart shoots from the blue line, and the puck sails through traffic. It hits Carey Price but sorta bounces behind him. I dunno, it's hard to tell from the replay. The end result is the puck trickling past Price as he dives backwards to try and save it.

Detroit goal (2-0) 14:42 in 1st period; PPG Datsyuk from Rafalski & Lidstrom:

While cycling the puck, Lidstrom makes a nice fake slap shot from the blue line and puts a pass right on Rafi's stick, who shoots to the left of the goal. Datsyuk is right there to tip the puck in past Carey Price.

Montreal goal (2-1) 00:09 in 3rd period; Cammalleri from Kostitsyn & Spacek:

This is a bad one. Montreal makes a line change and four guys rush the zone. Most of the Wings have already gotten back and are in the defensive zone. They match up with guys, but somehow Cammalleri is unaccounted for. The sea of players parts, and it's Cammalleri in the center of the ice 1-on-1 with Howard. Cammalleri shoots from near the top of the faceoff circles and scores

Montreal goal (2-2) 8:45 in 3rd period; Cammalleri from Kostitsyn & Plekanec:

Lidstrom has the puck behind the back of his own net. He sees a Montreal player coming at him with speed, and makes the smart play to clear the puck away from the Canadiens player, which means he doesn't make the easy pass up the boards or to the other d-man in front of the net but instead shoots behind the net and lets the puck ricochet around the far boards. The problem with this is that no one's there-except a Montreal player. He gets the puck, passes to a teammate who has gotten deep into the zone, and that guy then fires a centering pass that is deflected into the goal

Shootout:
Cammalleri-X
Datsyuk- G: Watching Pavel in a shootout is pure hockey gold. He does things I've never seen done before, things that seem like they should be physically impossible. How he can commit to the backhand and then switch to the forehand and not lose the puck is just amazing. That's exactly what happens here. It looks like Pav is going to go backhand, and gets Price to commit to that as well. He then pulls the puck across the crease and nestles it into the net.
Plekanec-X
Zetterberg- G: This seems like a read-and-react type of play, and if that's true then Z has some of the best hand-eye coordination in the world. Zetterberg hunkers down, making it look as if he's going to try and lift the puck high. The thing is, Price is leaving the 5 hole open so that he can move laterally if need be. Zetterberg sees this, and instead of trying to hit one of the corners he just shoots it 5 hole and scores. Game over.

Wings v. Panthers in review 11/20/09

Detroit goal (1-0) 17:58 in 2nd period; PPG Datsyuk from Zetterberg & Rafalski:

Rafalski puts one on net that's stopped. The defenseman tries to clear the puck off the rebound but instead it's stolen off his stick by Rafalski, who does a great job of following his shot to the net. He takes the puck to corner and passes to Z a little further down the boards, closer to the back of the net. Datsyuk then makes his move to the goal, which is to his left. Hanks sees this and passes to Pav, who shots immediately. The first shot is stopped, but the netminder gives up a rebound. Pav turns and stretches as far as he can, just barely reaching the puck and nuding it in.

Florida goal (1-1) 8:13 in 3rd period; Weiss from Horton & Frolik:

I;m not sure, but I think Rafalski was out of position on this one. He's camped out in the middle of the crease, while the puck is behind the net. The Florida player carries the puck to the right of Osgood, but he's D'ed up the whole way. Rafalski still decides to play on the right side of the crease, which allows another Florida player to get open and wait on the left side of the crease for a pass. The pass comes, the guy's all alone, and Osgood can't recover cross crease fast enough to stop it. Florida goal. EDIT: upon further review, I guess the Wings defender was a step behind Horton, who was carrying the puck. Rafalski must have made a split second decision to try and defend the puck carrier, which unfortunately left a man open.

Florida goal (2-1) 00:40 in OT; McCabe from Weiss & Horton:

Kinda flukey, to be honest. The Panthers are able to cycle the puck, and McCabe is wide open. He lets go of a one timer that beats Ozzie, and that's the game. Osgood didn't have a whole lot of time to get square to the shooter, but he manages to do a fairly good job and this and he definitely sees who has the puck. I have a hard time believing that he wouldn't stop this 9 times out of 10. No such luck tonight though, as Florida takes this one.

Wings v. Stars in review 11/18/09

This one was marred by what could have been. Brad May scored from the slot, which should have tied the game at 2 a piece. Instead, the refs called no goal despite the puck clearly crossing the goal line before the whistle was blown. This was noticeable in a number of replays. The NHL explained the next day that the goal was disallowed because of the referee's "intent to blow the whistle." Naturally that explanation isn't going to sit well with Wings fans, and it doesn't sit well with me. I have no idea how you can blow a play dead unless you ACTUALLY BLOW THE WHISTLE! How can you make "intent" a part of officiating? That opens up a whole new can of worms that is really best left alone. Imagine if the NFL did this. It would be the lead story on SportCenter and NFL Live and would be talked about at length. Unfortunately, being a part of a more niche market type of league means this call will largely go unnoticed.

Dallas goal (1-0) 9:26 in 1st period; PPG Ribeiro from Richards & Robidas:

Disappointingly simple. Richards carries the puck in and gets good position. His defender sprawls on the ice but doesn't take away the passing lane to the right, and Richards passes to Ribeiro in front of the net. Despite having a guy draped all over him, Ribeiro taps the puck between Howard's pads.

Dallas goal (2-0) 3:52 in 2nd period; Niskanen from Richards & Neal:

Slapshot from the blueline gets deflected in front of the net. Classic, unfortunately.

Detroit goal (2-1) 6:16 in 2nd period; Zetterberg from Leino & Lebda:

This one's worth looking up on Youtube. It's not flashy, but it shows just how powerful Zetterberg is when he carries the puck to the net. Hank has a half step on the defender the whole way, and gets good inside positioning on him. From there he just swoops to the net on a beautiful arc, an arc would basically have drawn a reverse "c" is you traced it from the blueline to the net along the right side. Z goes top shelf and scores over the goaltender's shoulder.

Dallas goal (3-1) 12:43 in 3rd period; PPG Eriksson from Neal & Modano:

The Wings are in the box formation they usually use on the penalty kill. The guy with the puck is in the corner, and he puts a quick cross ice pass on the stick of his teammate to the right of Jimmy Howard.

Osgood and Maltby in tonight, May out

Per the Free Press, Osgood will be back in goal while Maltby will be taking May's place in the lineup. May will be a healthy scratch. While I think May has played well lately, I'm not going to question Babcock's line juggling. With 3 games in 4 days, I think he knows what he's doing.

Also mentioned in the article is that Jimmy Howard will start in Montreal tomorrow night in large part because of his solid play there last season.

Fedorov accuses Wings of jealousy, thinks he was held back

The Free Press has an interesting article about comments Sergei Fedorov made to a Russian website. The full text of the interview can be found here. I liked Sergei when he was here but I'll admit that I was frustrated when he bolted. It seems like he's gotten more level headed with time, but the things he says about his time in Detroit are just bizarre. Fedorov comes off as a conspiracy theorist here. Jealousy within the team over the Russian 5? We'll probably never know for sure if this was true, but I'd like to know exactly who he thinks was jealous. Just when I was starting to like Fedorov again, he reminds me why he always felt a little more distant than the rest of the team.

Brendan Shanahan retires

Whatever hopes Wings had of re-signing former Wings star Brendan Shanahan can be put to rest, as he has decided to retire from the NHL. Shanny was an integral part of the Wings Cup wins in 97, 98, and 02. I grew up watching him play and have a lot of good memories; who can forget Shanny's Irish jig? Congrats to Brendan on a great career and thank you for your time with the Wings.

Howard to start again

Chris Osgood won't play tonight against Dallas. He is still fighting what the team calls "flu like symptoms." Despite practicing yesterday Osgood won't even dress as the backup, as the Wings called up Daniel Larsson again to fill that role.

Other than that, the lines will remain the same. I really like the lines Babs has settled with, and it's obviously paying off in wins right now. Not needing to mix things up is nice after the early part of the season was so full of line juggling to account for injuries and generally lackluster play. Now, just hope no one else gets hurt...