Red Wings Blog

The Dallas Stars were at the Joe tonight for a rematch against the Red Wings. The Wings played pretty poorly the last time they hosted the Stars. That was the game with the slow/quick whistle and the disallowed goal for Brad May. Turco was the goalie for the Stars and Howard was in for the Wings.

The first period had a really good pace with very few whistles. The Red Wings gave up a good scoring chance or two but luckily the Stars didn’t connect. The Red Wings had a few good shots but nothing too serious.

Then about three quarters of the way through the period it looked like the Wings had iced the puck. Drew Miller hustled back and pushed Skrastins’ stick away just as he was about to touch it for the icing. Then Miller took the puck and threw it to the front of the net. It hit Daley and bounced into the top corner of the net to make it one to nothing Red Wings. That was just a fantastic effort by Miller. If he keeps showing that kind of determination he will do well as a Red Wing.

Late in the first period Dallas went on the power play after somewhat of a phantom call. The Wings killed off the penalty but just after it expired and with just a few seconds left in the period, Dallas scored. Robidas had it at the point and walked up to the top of the circle. He shot it and Morrow tipped it in front of the net. There was no chance for Howard on a redirection like that.

With less than three second left in the period Ericsson was called for a hook so the Stars started the second period with the man advantage. Detroit was able to kill off the penalty so no harm done.

In the second period Bertuzzi passed the puck to Draper as he entered the zone. Draper made a beautiful pass through everybody to hit Helm right on the tape. He had a nearly open net and he buried it. That put the Wings up two to one. It was a great goal for Helm to get especially after missing an open net a few times in the game against St. Louis the other night. Even so he still played really well in that game. This should be a nice confidence boost for him.

A bit later in the second Zetterberg passed the puck to Cleary behind the net. Cleary shot and the rebound came all the way to the point where Rafalski held it in and threw it back to the net. It ended up next to the net where Cleary picked it up, pulled it back and put it in the net to give the Wings a two goal lead.

In the third period Bertuzzi brought the puck into the zone near the wall. About even with the faceoff dot he let it rip. The puck hit the stick of Daley and changed direction a little and started fluttering. It went under Turco’s arm and into the net. That made it four to one Red Wings.

The rest of the game was pretty uneventful as Detroit locked it down. Detroit played a very solid game tonight although Dallas didn’t do much about it. This was a good bounce back game. Even though the Wings won in St. Louis it took a shootout to get it done. This was the first game they’ve won handily in quite some time. I love the way guys like Miller and Helm are stepping up their games to fill gaps caused by injuries and attrition. Also, Jimmy Howard played a fantastic game tonight. He’s really starting to gain some confidence and it’s reflected in his play.

This wraps up a stretch of seven games in eleven nights. The Red Wings get a few days before their next game which is on Thursday. Hopefully, they’ll get at least a day or two off before then.

This 1-4 win brings us to:
13-9-4
30 points

The Dallas Stars came to town tonight to face the Wings.  The goalies for this game were Osgood and Turco.  The Red Wings put Brad Stuart on IR because of the torn rib cartilage he suffered when he crashed head first into the boards in Phoenix.  Zetterberg was also still out with back spasms.  The Wings called up Ville Leino, and Aaron Downey to fill the gaps.  Downey was in tonight’s game and Leino will be in on Saturday.

Detroit got off to a sloppy start again in this game.  The Stars looked sharp and ready to play.

In the first period Detroit was penalized for a very questionable holding call.  On the ensuing power play Dallas scored.  Richards took the shot and it was tipped in by Ott.

Shortly after the goal, Chelios swung his stick around blindly as he was turning and caught a Stars player square in the teeth.  It drew blood so it was an automatic double minor.  On the first penalty the Stars scored again.  They moved the puck at will, got Osgood to one side and then shot it on on the other side.  That gave the Stars an early two nothing lead.

Near the end of the first period Draper was kicked out of the face off circle and Cleary took his place.  He lost the face off and the Stars put the puck right to the slot where Conner one-timed it for their third unanswered goal.

Babcock changed goalies to start the second period.  The goals weren’t really Osgood’s fault.  Babcock was hopping that putting in Conklin would give the team a spark.

Early in the second period Detroit took another penalty.  Eriksson went towards the net with the puck.  When Conklin committed he put it around him and into the net.  Four nothing Stars.

Then Detroit went on the power play and were finally able to get their first goal of the game.  Rafalski sent it from the point towards Hossa in the slot.  Hossa redirected it towards the net and Holmstrom tipped past Turco.  That made it four to one Dallas.

Detroit scored again late in the second.  Lilja shot the puck from the blue line.  It might have been redirected off of a Stars player in front of the net.  Either way it brought the Wings to within two.

The Red Wings came alive in the second period.  They started to play much more physically.  There were tons of big hits and scraps.  The crowd really got into it in the second as well.  The Wings actually should have had another goal at the end of the second period but it was waved off.  They said it was because Holmstrom made contact with Turco.  However, the replays showed the Turco first whacked him in the skate and then Holmstrom was pushed into Turco by a Stars player.

In the third period the Wings tried to come back and score but were never able to do so.  The game ended four to two.

This was a pretty entertaining game.  Unfortunately, the Red Wings had dug themselves such a big hole in the first period that when they started playing well it was too little too late.

This 4-2 loss brings us to:
31-10-7
69 points

Detroit started their six game road trip tonight in Dallas.  Osgood was the goalie for Detroit and Turco was in for the Stars.

In the first period Osgood was sharp and it’s a good thing because the Wings started out looking a little flat.  The Stars had an early power play so that made it tough for the Red Wings to get into their groove.  By the second half of the first period things started to shape up.  Holmstrom got the puck along the boards and sent it back to Rafalski at the blue line.  He shot it and it deflected into the net off of a Dallas player.  Then a few minutes later Datsyuk brought the puck into the zone, made a nice move and dished it back to Holmstrom in the slot.  Homer tipped it in and Detroit was up two to nothing.

A few minutes later Dallas scored a very unlikely goal.  Grossman, who’s never scored an NHL goal, shot the puck.  He got it to the net over two Red Wings that went down to block the shot and through two or three other people that were in front of the net.  Osgood never had much of a look at it because of all the traffic in front of him.  Grossman was originally credited with the goal but it was changed to Parrish so Grossman is still looking for his first.

Just a couple of minutes later the Red Wings got that one back.  Lidstrom shot from the point with Hossa on the doorstep.  Turco made the inital stop and Hossa scored on the rebound.

Less than a minute into the second period Robidas shot from close to the point.  The shot deflected off of Brad Stuart and into the net.

A few seconds later Osgood got into a pinch and played the puck outside of the trapezoid.  On the ensuing power play he made an incredible save.  He kept the puck out of the net even though he himself was shoved in.  After a lengthy review the call of no goal was upheld.  The Red Wings went on to kill off the rest of that penalty.  

Later in the second period Parrish scored again for Dallas.  He got the puck in the high slot and released it quickly.  There was traffic in front again.  It was probably hard for Osgood to see it coming until it was too late.  That goal tied the game at three.

In the final couple of minutes of the second period Osgood made some huge saves to keep the game tied.  However, he accidentally high-sticked one of the Stars as he skated by the net.  It ripped the guy’s lip open so it was a four minute penalty to Osgood.  Detroit got out of the period but would have a lengthy power play to kill in the third.

The Red Wings killed off the rest of the four minute penalty.  Then later in the third Datsyuk scored a great goal.  He muscled his way into the zone and burned Turco with a wrister to take back the lead.  It was one that Turco should have had but didn’t.

At the three minutes left mark Dallas tied the game with a power play goal that was scored by Ott.  They moved the puck very well and picked apart the Red Wings defense.

That goal held and regulation ended with a four to four tie.

The Stars scored the overtime goal for the win.  It got messy in front of the net and Daley came in cleaned it up.  Detroit was badly outshot by the Stars.  They were lucky to get a point out of this one.  Osgood was spectacular but I can’t say the same for most of the rest of the team.

This 5-4 overtime loss brings us to:
29-7-6
64 points

Tonight’s opponent was the Dallas Stars.  Turco was in net for them and Osgood was in for us.  The Stars aren’t doing very well in the standings because they had a very slow start.  They’ve been playing better lately though.

Early in the first period Zetterberg won a faceoff in the Dallas end.  He got the puck to Brad Stuart who then passed it to Hossa near the point.  Hossa took the long shot and there was just enough traffic in the way that Turco didn’t see it until it was too late.  That gave the Wings the early one nothing lead.

Later in the first period Zetterberg made a pass from the hash marks near the boards to Kronwall at the blue line.  Kronwall shot the puck and it ended up dropping to the ice in front of the net near the post.  Cleary was right on the doorstep and he whacked it in.  This play was greatly facilitated by Hossa who got in the way of a defenseman which prevented him from intercepting Zetterberg’s pass.

In the second period the grinders got into the act.  Draper threw the puck from his own zone to center ice.  It bounced off one of the Stars and Kronwall picked it up and took off.  He entered the zone with speed and dished it to Kopecky who took the shot.  Turco stopped that shot but the rebound came right to Maltby who roofed it for the goal.  It was a beautiful goal, and a good team effort by the hard-working guys.

Later in the second the Red Wings scored a power play goal.  Datsyuk dumped the puck into the zone and it came around the boards towards Holmstrom.  A Dallas defenseman was again going for the puck and Hossa got in his way.  Holmstrom got the puck and slapped it past Turco.  By rule that should have been interference on Hossa because he hit the defenseman and neither of them ever had the puck.  Mickey Redmond pointed that out as well.  He wants the Wings to win but he wants the game to be fair and called consistently.  I agree 100%.

Tobias Stephan replaced Marty Turco to start the third period.

Within the first minute of the third period Dallas scored a goal.  Daley shot the puck and Osgood stopped it.  Then the clearing attempt came right back to him and he shot it again.  It was deflected in front by Eriksson and went past Osgood for the goal.  That made it four to one Wings.

On the next play Kronwall made a clean hit on Ribeiro.  It was a big hit, he pretty well leveled him.  Then, as soon as Kronwall turned around after the hit, Ott crosschecked him in the back.  One of the worst aspects of the NHL is the retaliation for a good clean hit.  Hitting is part of the game and the enforcers on every team should realize that a clean hit, no matter how hard, should not be cause for retaliation.  This was just discussed recently on NHL Live.  It’s a problem that’s getting worse and it probably needs to be addressed by the NHLPA, not the league.  It’s an internal problem that the players need to work out if they don’t want to kill the game.

A few minutes later Detroit ended up with a 4 on 3 power play.  Datsyuk took the faceoff against Steve Ott.  Datsyuk won it back to Lidstrom who made a perfect pass back to Datsyuk.  He wristed a laser beam shot to the top shelf making it five to one Wings.

Not long after that things got ridiculous.  Steve Ott continued to make an idiot of himself and put the Wings on another power play.  Zetterberg won another faceoff back to Kronwall.  He shot the puck and Zetterberg deflected it into the net.  That made the score six to one.

That did it for this game.  The Wings played extremely well.  I really like how they’re are now doing much better at hanging on to a lead and playing hard for the full 60 minutes.

This 6-1 win brings us to:
28-7-5
61 points

Tonight the Red Wings were in Dallas to play the Stars.  Turco was their starting goalie and for the Red Wings it was Conklin.  This was the the third straight start for Conklin.  That makes me wonder what might be wrong with Osgood.  Perhaps he’s injured or just not looking good enough in practice.  Hopefully, therell be some news about this situation soon.

Early in the first period Detroit got on the board first.  They had just failed to convert on their first power play.  I think it was the very next shift and Hudler got the puck along the boards in the offensive zone.  Lebda crept down towards the goal and Hudler made nice pass across the ice right to his tape.  Lebda put it in for the goal.

At the end of the first period the Stars had a long 5 on 3 power play.  Detroit held their ground thanks to some good shot blocking by Lilja and a great save by Conklin.  Dallas still had a few seconds of 5 on 3 left when the period ended.

The Wings killed off the rest of the penalties to start the second period.  Then Dallas tied the game with a goal by Wandell.  Maltby was trying to gather the puck in his own zone but he never really got possession of it.  Wandell came from behind him, took the puck away and put it in the net.  That was a pretty soft looking sequence for the Wings.

A few minutes later the Red Wings collapsed again.  Brunnstrom came streaking in from the neutral zone.  He took the pass on the fly just inside the blue line.  As he was driving up the slot he made a move to his left and Lidstrom bit the other direction which gave Brunnstrom the wide open slot.  He drove it in a little further and burned Conklin with the shot.  That made it two to one Stars and it was another pretty weak play by the Wings.  Babcock called timeout after that goal.  After the timeout the Wings got more scoring chances but they still pretty much seemed like they didn’t really care.

In final minutes of the game Detroit pulled the goalie to try to tie it up.  Ribeiro got the puck and he shot it into the empty net to give Dallas a three to one lead.  That was it for the wings.

There was one stretch in the third period where the Wings were playing like they should, but Turco was on fire and stopped everything.  If they’d played like that for sixty minutes they probably would have scored more than one goal.

The Wings are playing like a teams that’s learned over the first quarter of a season that they can play like crap and still be at top of the league.  The fact that that’s true is a testament to the talent they have.  However, when you get in the habit of playing like crap, I suspect it’s tough to crank it up when the time comes.

From what I’ve seen I think Conklin needs to work on rebound control, and the rest of the team just needs to work.  They did put the pressure on in the third period, but it was too late at that point.  They need to be working like that from start to finish.

Everybody assumes that it’s a Stanley Cup hangover because the Wings have basically the entire team back from last year along with a few great additions.  I think that’s a bunch of crap.  One thing that I haven’t heard mentioned but which I think may be a key factor is the loss of Todd McLellan.  Consider that he was an assistant coach for the Wings who was obviously of top tier head coach caliber.  That’s a pretty serious loss of talent behind the bench.  I could be wrong but I don’t see any other differences that could have had such a profound impact.  Unless you think that last year’s great play was all because of Chelios.  :-)  No offense to Chelly, but I don’t think that’s the problem.

This 3-1 loss brings us to:
19-5-4
42 points