The Red Wings and the Maple Leafs met tonight in Toronto. The starting goalies were Osgood and Gustavsson.
There was some good news for the Red Wings on the injury front. Brad May returned to the lineup. It was a relief to find out that he didn’t have a serious eye problem.
Tonight was Hall of Fame night. There was a pre-game ceremony for this year’s Hall of Fame inductees. Brett Hull, Lou Lamoriello, Brian Leetch, Luc Robitaille and Steve Yzerman were all on hand along with Hall of Fame members from past years. They introduced the inductees and did a ceremonial puck drop.
The Red Wings got off to a bit of a rocky start as the Maple Leafs had several scoring chances in the first five minutes of the game. Chris Osgood was playing well and stopped them all with the assistance of a post on one occasion.
In the second five minutes of the game the Red Wings seemed to get their legs under them and had several scoring chances of their own. Gustavsson stopped all of them as well though.
Just past the 10 minute mark Primeau entered the zone with speed. Draper was on him but he fell down. Primeau took it to the net. He shot it and beat Osgood giving the Leafs the one to nothing lead.
With 25 seconds left in the first period the Maple Leafs scored again. Things got sloppy in the Red Wings end. The puck was bouncing around and ended up getting pushed through Osgood’s legs and stalling between him and the goal. Kessel skated through and finished it off giving the Leafs the two to nothing lead.
Early in the second period, with the Red Wings on a power play that was just about to expire, Stempniak and Stajan brought the puck into the Red Wings zone. They passed it back and forth a few times and then Stempniak passed to Finger in front of Osgood. Finger elevated the puck and caught the top corner of the net over Osgood’s glove hand. It wasn’t technically a shorthanded goal but the penalty had just expired so it might as well have been. That made it three nothing Leafs.
Later in the second period Jason Williams went down with his right knee twisted underneath hem. It looked really bad. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he broke his knee. He was basically carried off the ice without putting any pressure on his right leg. Not good news for a team already troubled by injuries. They later reported that he had been taken for x-rays.
The Red Wings did not find a way to score and the period ended with the Maple Leafs still winning three to nothing. At the end of the period the Red Wings were on the power play so it carried over to the third period. A few seconds before the penalty was over the Leafs were called again. Detroit had a 5 on 3 but it was only for a few seconds and the Leafs killed it. The Wings had some excellent scoring chances on the power play but Gustavsson made several incredible saves to keep Detroit off the board.
A few minutes later Rafalski passed it to Cleary who was going to the net. It was a perfect pass and Cleary made the most of it. He put it in the top corner of the net, finally beating Gustavsson and bringing the Wings within two goals. It was Cleary’s 100th career goal so congratulations to him!
After the goal Detroit seemed to have some momentum going their way but then they were called for too many men on the ice. The Leafs went on the power play and the Red Wings were unable to clear for a long time. The penalty killers were out of gas. Kessel shot the puck from the top of the circle. Mitchell was in front of the net and he tipped it down and in. That gave Toronto a three goal lead again.
A few minutes later Ponikarovsky shot and scored through Osgood’s five hole to give the Leafs a five to one lead. With about seven minutes left, this game was essentially over.
The Wings lost the game five to one. They didn’t play very well tonight either offensively or defensively. The Leafs had just played the night before but you’d have thought it was the Red Wings that had. At times they picked it up and played well but only in short bursts. The play of Gustavsson was huge for Toronto. For the Red Wings I thought that Helm played well and Lebda had “one of those nights”.
This 1-5 loss brings us to:
7-5-3
17 points
