The Wings congratulate Steve Yzerman, whose goal in the second period was his second of the season.(detnews)
The Wings shut out the Predators 3-0 tonight. The Captain, Feds and Zata scored. Yzerman and Sergei’s goals were on the PP and Zetterberg’s was an empty net goal. CuJo started and looked sharp.
Not a particularly exciting game, it was fairly even the whole time. Neither team played great. Most of the time, the Wings had the puck rolling off the end of their stick as they were making a play. the HDZ line had another good game, Pavel was creating fits for the Nashville defense all game. All three players got a point. Nothing stands out from this game, except maybe the 4:00 Preds PP the Wings killed off near the end of the game. It looked like the Wings were having trouble motivating themselves to play a non-playoff team. It’s good they won though because they clinched the Central Division.
The league suspended assistant coach Joe Kocur for two games for throwing that chair on the ice on Saturday. They also fined the Wings $5,000. They fined Blues head coach Joel Quenneville $5,000 too and the Blues team $25,000. Too bad no one on the Blues got suspended but that’s asking too much. Interesting factoid: Igor Larionov does not use a curved stick blade in games. He’s been using one in pre-game and practices (along with a heavier stick than he uses in games so his game sticks feel lighter). I never knew that. Pretty amazing that he can make all those great passes and handle the puck so well with no curve. Anyway, next up: Thursday vs. the Islanders at 7:30 @ the Joe. I hope they’ll get up a little more for that one, it’d be nice to win the Conference and maybe the President’s Trophy. Dallas won tonight so they are again #1 in the Conference and also are tied with Ottawa for #1 in the league. They’re just one point ahead of us though. GO WINGS!!!!! | full recap | box score
detnews Wings notebook 03/31/03
Two Wings draw raves
By Ted Kulfan / The Detroit News
DETROIT — The Red Wings won all five regular-season games with the St. Louis Blues, but the teams have players who still are competing for postseason awards.
The Wings’ Nicklas Lidstrom and the Blues’ Al MacInnis are the top contenders for the Norris Trophy, given to the best defenseman. Wings forward Henrik Zetterberg and Blues defenseman Barret Jackman are the likely favorites for the Calder Trophy, given to the top rookie……[more]
freep Wings notebook 3/31/03
Winning out earns top seed out West
March 31, 2003
FREE PRESS STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES
With one week to go in the regular season, the Red Wings have four games in which to determine their playoff seeding.
Win 'em all, and the Wings will be the top seed in the Western Conference and have home-ice advantage for at least the first three rounds of the playoffs....[more]
So the Wings have to win out to get the Conference title? Shouldn’t be too tough:
March 31 vs. Nashville (tonight)
April 3 vs. NYI
April 4 @ Columbus
April 6 @ Chicago
Think they can do it? I do.
“If there’s no season after next year, I’m done. Just call when it’s over for a managerial job.”
– Detroit winger Brett Hull, on why he signed just a one-year contract extension. Hull, 38, said a work stoppage in 2004 would end his career.
Click here if you want a good laugh. It’s an entirely different perspective on the game yesterday.
detnews Behind the Scenes – 3/30/03
Lidstrom deserves recognition as MVP
By Vartan Kupelian and Mike O’Hara / The Detroit News
It’s time to stoke hockey’s hot stove and start talking about postseason honors.
There are plenty of NHL players worthy this season of Most Valuable Player consideration……[more]
I don’t think you can overstate Brett Hull’s value to the Wings. He is still so good, even at this point in his career, that he can dominate a game. He has a couple of great linemates in Zetteberg and Datsyuk and really makes the most of it. He was definitely the best acquisition of the Big 3 and might be the best of Holland’s GM career. A half-million raise is very much deserved by Hull. He would have been back anyway but I’m glad they signed him again. Keep it up, Hully!
Brett Hull, who got his 33rd career hat trick, scores against former Red Wing Chris Osgood. (AP)
The Wings still own the Blues. They crushed them today 6-2, ruining Pronger’s return (the Wings didn’t ruin his return though, Pronger ruined his return….he played dirty the whole game and took bad penalties, though he got a goal). Hully had a hat trick, Pavel scored an individual effort goal and Nick and Feds scored. Zetterberg ended up with 2 points, Datsyuk with 4 and Hull had 4. Manny Legace got the start and the win for the Wings. He is such a steady backup. Good job today Manny. The only downside to this game was having to listen to Gary Thorne and Co.
The game was intense all the way through, very physical (Zetterbeg was absolutely leveled and only escaped serious injury because he saw it coming and bailed out…..he assisted on Hull’s first goal on that same shift)with many fights, especially at the end where the Blues lost their self-control. There were only 4 players on the bench for the Wings in the last minute and 3 for the Blues, all the others had been sent to the locker room. Assistant coach Joe Kocur got into a shouting match with Blues head coach Joel Quennville near the end. Jackman fought Bykov and Shanny got into a fight with Nash, who was trying get back at Shanny for his really nasty high stick earlier on (I hope Brendan doesn’t get suspended for that, he probably will though….it was pretty bad). Draper and Maltby were ambushed at the blue line by some Blues goons. Even Luc got involved and might have hurt his hand. It looked like a bomb went off at center ice, with all the equipment scattered everywhere. Wings assistant coach Joe Kocur threw a chair onto the ice and will proabably be fined. t looked more like an Avalance-Wings game than a Blues-Wings game to me. The refereeing was worse than usual, from both points of view.
The Wings are still #2 in the Western Conference, one point behind Dallas (they were #1 for a couple hours until the Stars beat the Sharks), with 104 points. They are again 7 points in front of St. Louis and have all but won the division. Something drastic will have to happen for them not to win it (ie. they’d have to lose all their remaining games and the Blues would have to win all of theirs). The Avs are #4 now and are only 2 points behind the Canucks, which are in the same division. Hopefully the Canucks will win enough to hold off the Avs but lose enough to stay behind the Wings. Next up: the Predators on Monday @ the Joe at 7:30. GO WINGS!!! | full recap | box score
Another important game today against the Blues. This is the last of the on-paper “tough” games until the playoffs. The rest of the games are against non-playoff teams, with the exception of the Islanders who probably will be the 7th or 8th seed in the East. Those games won’t be easy though because those teams will be playing for their jobs. Hopefully the Wings won’t take a win for granted and float through these last 5 games. They need to win most of them, if not all of them.
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