Detroit Red Wings

2-1 Series

It’s Memorial Day Weekend so I’ll make this quick:

-Chicago played well. I don’t know how one team has a 9-0 lead in power play minutes, but the refs evened those up for us in the 2nd that allowed us to get back into it. That’s what makes NHL officiating so frustrating.

-Kris Draper won’t play, per Bruce McLeod. Justin Abdelkader will take his spot and Pavel Datsyuk is still a game-time decision, per Mike Babcock’s presser.

-The hit. Let me just say this: Nick Kronwall is a dirty hitter. He is. Constantly leaping into players and boarder-line late hits and some leading with the elbow. Last night, however, was not a dirty hit. There’s been 385 votes on James Mirtle’s post about the hit, and 73% have said it was legal. Even Frank the Hockey Analysis Blackhawks blogger said he thought it was legal, or iffy at best. I think a major and game misconduct is excessive, to say the least.

Pretty much says it all, in my mind.

-I’m looking forward to game 4. I think Chicago wins, 4-2 with an empty netter for the 4th goal.

2-0 Heading to Chicago

I didn’t get to see anything but the 3rd period onward. That was fun enough, to see. Marian Hossa seemed to be flying and it was good to get a win.

I wouldn’t be shocked if this came back to Detroit 2-2, though.

5-2 Over the B-Hawks

So, I didn’t get a chance to make a post after the Anaheim series. Lets just say that I’m a big Ryan Getzlaf and Bobby Ryan fan.

The Hawks scare me. Box score, highlights.

Some thoughts…

-I’m not asking Chris Osgood to be Dominik Hasek circa the late 1990’s in Buffalo, but he can’t make a turnover like he did on the first goal of the game. That said, Jon Ericsson cannot have hands of stone and try to reverse the flow like that with someone on him. Just pull it to the boards and take your chance in a battle in the corner. I’ll take the Wings chances in a scrum with our puck-handling/getting abilities all day, every day.

-Dan Cleary looked really good. Still, I didn’t think his first goal was one that should’ve gone in. It wasn’t an overly hard shot (judging by my eyes, of course, so i may/probably am wrong), just pretty well placed. Still, I think Khabibulin shouldn’t stopped it.

-Pavel Datsyuk seems to no longer be skating with authority. He’s still noticeable but he’s becoming increasingly more invisible in all three zones, which is not something that can happen if we’re to get back to the Finals again. He was only 7-for-16 on the draw, as well.

-Kris Draper hasn’t lost it in the circle either, going 9-for-11 today in the circle.

-I love Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith. Keith because he’s a former Michigan State Spartan, Seabrook just because he’s phenomenal. Despite his bad give away that led to the Cleary goal to tie it at 1.

-Pat Kane only played 15 minutes in the game. i’d imagine the Hawks would want, and need, more out of him. No shots on goal, either.

-This game was nuts. Up and down the ice. This will be a fun, fun series to watch.

Anaheim Smothers Wings

Well, we’ll be having a game 7 Thursday night back in Motown. Not a lot of time to write much more but:

-Detroit looked pretty average most of the night. That nearly 100% due to Anaheim’s defense tonight. They were stifiling and not letting any rebounds get to Wings sticks — that’s if they let them get to the net in the first place.

-Getzlaf turned it up in the final 40 minutes. I thought Anaheim started bad with a bunch of turnovers until the first television timeout. They were great the rest of the way. Getzlaf also had a fantastic night in the circle: 16-for-24 and 4-for-6 in his own zone. He’s now 55-for-130 (42.30%) overall, and 15-for-35 in his own zone (42.86%).

-Pavel Datsyuk has to be frustrated. He’s been bad by his standards in this series.

-Another game, another late Johan Franzen goal. But, it was all made by the Brian Rafalski hold in and the great pass by Hank to Jiri Hudler who went quickly to Franzen.

-Hiller looked pretty solid on the shots that got through. He made a hell of a save to win the game in the closing seconds.

-Hopefully this game 7 goes as good as the last game 7 Detroit was in.

Dominating Wings Effort; Lead Series 3-2

So, the Wings brought it for the full 60 minutes this evening, aside from a 7-8 minute stretch near the end of the 2nd period where Anaheim got their second wind. Here’s the highlights. Since it’s Mother’s Day, I don’t have time/energy to say much, so quickly my thoughts:

-The fact that we’re up 3-2 without a game in which Pavel Datsyuk has looked like Pavel Datsyuk is impressive and speaks to the depth this team has.

-Marian Hossa’s had back-to-back strong games.

-Brad Stuart’s quietly been our second best defenseman.

-Congrats to Darren Helm on his first career playoff goal.

-The loss of Kris Draper for this entire series hasn’t really hurt at all.

-Nick Kronwall’s penalty led to the Ducks only goal. Go figure. He’s been killing us this series. I’m convinced he’s hurt.

-Justin Abdelkader picked up his first career playoff point tonight.

-Johan Franzen’s still a freakin’ beast.

-Yeah, I’m beating this drum so hard it’s about broken, but: Jonas HIller does not look that good to me at all.

-Ryan Getlzaf HAS to be beat. His line’s constantly coming over the boards. After spending 1:25 of the 2:00 minute power play on the ice, he got a 22 second break before heading back over for another shift in the late 2nd. As an update on the end of my last post, Getzlaf was 8-for-20 on the draw today, and 3-for-6 in his own end. That not makes him 39-for-106 (36.8%) and 11-for-29 in his own zone (37.9%) in the series. If you remove what, in this series, is his statistical outlier (12-for-20 in Game 3), he’s been just 27-for-86 (31.4%) just 8-for-24 (33.3%) in his own zone. He’s got points in every game except one (Game 2 against San Jose), so this is absolutely, 100% nitpicking, but the Ducks failure to move to another go-to faceoff man is hurting them. Faceoffs are infinitely more important against a team like Detroit that’s built to maintain puck possession and are built to handling the puck for massive stretches of time.

2-2 Coming Home

Nice to not have to eek out a 1-goal win tonight.  Definitely hated the start they got off to, but rebounded nicely. Some quick thoughts:

-Great adjustment by juggling the lines by Mike Babcock. Hossa-Franzen-Filppula was the best line on the ice after they got put together.

-This was the first time in the series Detroit’s had the best line in the game.

-Pavel Datsyuk still needs to get going now that Marian Hossa broke out.

-Johan Franzen’s a freaking beast. He needs a much better nickname then “Mule.”

-Chris Osgood let in a softy.

-Jonas Hiller didn’t look any different to me tonight then he’s looked all playoffs. Positioning slightly off and bad rebound control. Only, tonight, he coupled those with a few softies that he undoubtedly wants back. (Still weren’t as bad as the goal Roberto Luongo gave up to Marty Havlat against the Hawks. How the hell does that go in? Wrister from 35 feet out with a clear lane between him and the goalie? You kidding me?)

-2-2 coming home is nice and all, but we need to win game 5. It’s imperative.

-Nick Kronwall has been absolutely terrible all postseason long. I think he’s battling an injury. He’s made poor decisions with the puck, hasn’t been physical aside from his patented should-be-a-charging-penalty jump-hits, and I’m not sure he’s out played the 5th or 6th defensemen on the team.

-I know Ryan Getzlaf was at 50.2% on the draw this year (taking over 1100 of them this year), but they need to think of moving him off the dot. He went 6-for-17 tonight in the circle and is now 31-for-86 over all — that’s just 36%. If you take out game 3 where he was 12-for-20, he’s 19-for-66, which is a staggering 29%. And it’s not just how many he’s losing, but he’s losing crucial ones. He is just 8-for-26 on the draw in his own zone which is jsut 31%. It’s not a big problem if he isn’t the main faceoff-man, but he is. Obviously they’ve split in Detroit and are tied in the series, so it’s not like it’s led them to being in a huge 3-1 hole or something of that ilk, and I think he’s been the best player in the series thus far, but this is a big dent in his abilities. I wonder why he’s getting beat so much in the postseason versus the regular season? If you extrapolate his 36% faceoff percentage in this series out over his 1128 faceoffs take this year, he would’ve won just 406 of the — 160 less than what he actually won this year.

Anaheim Survives; 2-1 Series

Box score.

Not a lot of time right now, but let me say this as clearly as I can: THE BLOWN CALL DID NOT COST US THE GAME. The fact that the Wings failed to show up in the first half of the game had much more to do with it. Ryan Getzlaf continues to out play Pavel Datsyuk and Marian Hossa combined.

That said, how does Brad Watson not see that puck? I know that there was a turnover and he scrambled to get back behind the net, but he’s at the back corner, about one ad on the board away from being directly behind the net. The puck is in plain site where Hossa’s stick is also heading to poke it in. There is no way he cannot see the puck. I’m not going to give him all hell like I’m sure he’ll get everywhere else (especially in Detroit), but couple this with more inconsistent penalty calls (stop me if you’ve heard this before…) on both sides, and the officiating continues to leave a lot to be desired.

Some quick thoughts:

-Hossa looked better.

-Datsyuk still looks awful by his standards. Detroit cannot win this series without the Datsyuk line making their presence known.

-This is a Wings blog so I’m looking at what the Wings have done wrong. That said, big time kudos to the Ducks. They deserve more credit then I’m giving them.

-Chris Chelios needs to not see the ice again — let alone play 10-something minutes. Scratch him for Derek Meech, please.

-Brad Stuart still looks good.

-Jonas Hiller didn’t seem to be tested much in my opinion, tonight. Leaves me still largely unimpressed.

1-1 Series Heading West

Todd Marchant’s goal early into the third overtime notted up the series at 1 apiece. I don’t have much time so I’ll just go with this:

-Darren Helm is quickly becoming one of my favorite Red Wings players. Dude was everywhere. He’s the player I used to remember Kris Draper being — just more physical and with better hands.

-Getzlaf is awesome. The Ducks had more jump today and carried the play most of the regulation time.

-Detroit took over during the first two overtimes in my mind in terms of puck possession, but they really looked brutally sloppy all game long. Probably shouldn’t have even been in OT at all.

-Haven’t been impressed with Jonas Hiller at all in this series. I know that we’re a different team than San Jose and we have a couple of big bodies constantly in his kitchen all game, but his rebound control has been shakey and he just looks pretty average on the whole, in my opinion.

-Would’ve really loved to be up 2-0 heading to Anaheim. This has a very 2007 feel to it when we were missing Matt Schneider and Nick Kronwall — we’re down Brian Rafalski, Andreas Lilja and Kris Draper.

-Brad Stuart was a beast today, as well.

Late Second Win; Wings Lead 1-0

Man, that was intense. I missed the first period, but the second and third were entertaining. Thank you Nick Lidstrom.

Box score and highlights.

Thoughts:

-I didn’t see the Hudler hit live, but I didn’t get as worked up when I saw the replays as Keith Jones was. Then again, I got the long angle from a corner of the rink. I think the result might’ve been worse then the actual hit. Hudler’s a small guy, too, which doesn’t help the cause of anyone trying to hit him. The puck was clearly gone but I’m not sold that it should’ve been a 5 minute major but I’ll take it. I think the hit from Brashear on Betts was far, far worse. I don’t think Brown should get suspended for the rest of the series like Jones thinks he should be. 2 games should, at max, is enough in my mind + a hefty fine.

-I like that we allegedly out-hit the Ducks. Definitely looked physical and I loved that Jon Ericsson jumped into a spontaneous brawl with Corey Perry. Mancrush on Ericsson continues to grow.

-Johan Franzen is a freakin’ bull in a china shop. I love it. Even if it doesn’t bode well for the long-term deal he got.

-I would like to see Darren Helm get more than just under 7 minutes of playing time.

-Ryan Getzlaf played the most minutes of any player tonight at 27:55.

-Again, thank you Nick Lidstrom. He had a hand in all three goals with two of his own and assiting on the other.

Anaheim-Detroit Schedule

After the Ducks finished off a fightless San Jose squad last night, Detroit officially knew it would be getting a second crack at Anaheim in the postseason. The schedule will be as follows:

Game 1 — Friday at Detroit, 7 p.m., Versus
Game 2 — Sunday at Detroit, 2 p.m., NBC
Game 3 — Tuesday at Anaheim, 10:30 p.m., Versus
Game 4 — Thursday, May 7 at Anaheim, 10:30 p.m., Versus
x-Game 5 — Sunday, May 10 at Detroit, 5 p.m.
x-Game 6 — Tuesday, May 12 at Anaheim, TBD, Versus
x-Game 7 — Thursday, May 14 at Detroit, TBD, Versus
x-if necessary

The rest of the Western Conference playoffs schedule can be found in there. Kind of shocked that the Wings did get the 2 p.m. slot on NBC, I figured that’d go to Crosby-Ovechkin series. Wait, what? There’s whole teams playing in that series and not just Crosby v. Ovechkin? Since when? Does The Count know about this? And he approved it? I’m not sure I buy that.

Sorry, just a little bitterness at the amount of OV/Crosby jocking the league and media do constantly. That said, I am actually turning more excited about this series.

Initially the Ducks were one of the teams I did not want to face — big, tough, physical, solid in their own zone, good netminding and possibly the best line in the playoffs with Perry-Getzlaf-Ryan. But, the Sharks laid down like dogs for the Ducks for the majority of that series and really Anaheim cruised to a rather uneventful series win. Detroit will not be doing that. Mike Babcock won’t allow it. Obviously Anaheim is better then Columbus, but the Wings defense looked lock-down and there was a sense of urgency in their game that wasn’t there for most of the year (where they coasted to their 4th straight 50-win season).

Still, I think the series goes 6 and Anaheim does steal one of the two in Detroit, maybe game 1.

Other Wings news: Pavel Datsyuk is a Selke Finalist. I don’t see how you cannot give him the award considering he won it last year and and only improved in 2008-09.