by true Citizens of Hockeytown
If you are looking for an incredibly, insanely, ridiculously analytical study of the Wings’ first two games, go to:
The author uses a formula for player efficiency and talks about all these statistical ideas. I took AP Statistics, but this was even too much for me to swallow. Maybe he should wait until tomorrow night rather than finding equations for success based on totally different games against teams from different Conferences.
Lidstrom, Hull and Whitney celebrate Nick’s game winning goal in OT
The Wings won their second game last night 3-2 off a power play goal by Nick Lidstrom in overtime. The game wasn’t terribly exciting, with both teams playing very much a defensive style.
One thing I noticed over and over was an apparent lack of effort offensively by the Wings. There were far too many half-hearted passes and lazy skating going on. There were some opportunities that just would have required a small amount of extra effort and there would have been a breakaway or scoring chance. Maybe this isn’t a lack of effort but instead is the Wings’ new style of play but I hope not!
The Wings should have won this game in regulation but Mathieu Schneider passed the puck to Jason Spezza right in front of the net. Not a very smart thing to do, considering Spezza’s one of the rising stars in the league. He roofed the puck on Dom and cut the Wings’ 2-0 lead in half. Radek Bonk then scored in the 3rd period to tie it up. The Captain and Holmstrom scored the other goals for the Wings.
Dominik looked pretty steady and Hatcher was much more of a presence. Jiri Fischer looked great and Ray Whitney was great on the penalty kill. Pavel Datsyuk actually used one of his moves early on in the first period but didn’t get anything out of it. I kept wanting him to come off the boards and break in on the net but I was disapointed. He played well, though, and so did Zetterberg.
Next up:
Vancouver on Thursday, the 16th
Free Press game report | ESPN game report | Box score | Photos
Lines:
Maltby-Draper-McCarty
Whitney-Yzerman-Shanahan
Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Hull
Devereaux-Williams-Holmstrom
Fischer-Chelios
Hatcher-Lidstrom
Schneider-Dandenault
4 on 4-
Zetterberg-Datsyuk
Schneider-Lidstrom
PP-
Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Hull
Holmstrom-Yzerman-Shanahan
Whitney-Lidstrom
Schneider-Lidstrom
Whitney-Hatcher
PK-
Maltby-Draper
Whitney-Zetterberg
Maltby-Yzerman
Ldstrom-Chelios
Fischer-Chelios
Lidstrom-Dandenault
Lidstrom-Hatcher
O.T.-
Datsyuk-Hull
Lidstrom-Hatcher
OT PP 4 on 3-
Shanahan-Yzerman-Datsyuk
Shanahan-Yzerman-Zetterberg
Whitney-Zetterberg-Hull
Lidstrom(GWG)
Net-
Dominik Hasek
The Wings play their first away game tonight in Ottawa. In many people’s opinion, this a very likely preview of the Stanley Cup Finals. I don’t know if I fully buy that but I do know this will be a much better test of where the Wings are at this point than the Kings game. The Kings are a decent team when fully healthy but they had too many injuries to give us any look at how the Wings will play against the higher level teams. Ottawa is one of the best in the league and are coming off a President’s Trophy season and a conference finals run. The came out of the gates in full force against the Habs on Thursday, winning 5-2, and will be ready tonight. It should be a very good game. The Wings realready lost to the Sens in the pre-season but now that they have their full roster playing, it should be a different story. Dom will get the start again and Hudler will likely sit. The game will be on FSN and 1270.
The Captain scored with 1.7 seconds left in the 3rd period to give the Wings their first win in their first game. The game overrall was pretty decent but the Wings definitely have some things they need to work on. Dom looked fairly steady but Hatcher didn’t impress me. Ray Whitney wasn’t all that noticeable (though he had two assists) but didn’t play poorly. Jiri Fischer scored the first goal of the season off a great pass from Pavel Datsyuk on the power play. The Wings led 1-0 for a while before the Kings went up 2-1. Then Datsyuk tipped in a Lidstrom shot on the power play in the third and tied it up. In the last minute, Sean Avery, who had been an annoyance all night, somehow got wide open on Hasek but didn’t score. The Wings took it the other way, Yzerman to Whitney and back to Yzerman, who one-timed it past Chechmanek for the game winner. A decent start to the season, I’d say, but they have to get better. Next up: @ Ottawa on Saturday. Free Press game notes | DetNews game notes
Here are the lines from last night:
Whitney-Zetterberg-Shanahan
Devereaux-Draper-McCarty
Maltby-Datsyuk-Hull
Holmstrom-Williams-Yzerman
Maltby-Draper-McCarty
Devereaux-Datsyuk-Hull
Holmstrom-Zetterberg-Shanahan
Whitney-Datsyuk-Hull
Devereaux-Williams-Yzerman
Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Hull
Whitney-Williams-Yzerman
Defense-
LIdstrom-Hatcher
Fischer-Chelios
Schneider-Dandenault
4 on 4-
Maltby-Datsyuk
Fischer-Chelios
PP-
Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Hull
Holmstrom-Yzerman-Shanahan
Devereaux-Draper-McCarty
Lidstrom-Whitney
Hatcher-Schneider
Fischer-Chelios
LIdstrom-Schneider
PK-
Maltby-Draper
Fischer-Chelios
Net- Dominik Hasek
Tonight it all begins. The Kings are coming to town for the home opener and we’ll see two former Wings in their lineup: Sean Avery and Luc Robitaille. Sean Avery will probably start something and we’ll probably see a different Luc than we’re used to. He always seems to play better for the Kings, for some reason.
Brian has already given the lines so I won’t repeat them here. The defensive pairings are expected to be:
Hatcher-Lidstrom
Chelios-Fischer
Schneider-Dandenault or Woolley.
Scratches- Hudler, Joseph, Dandenault or Woolley.
Dominik will obviously get the start, with Manny backing him up. Don’t expect Hasek to dominate in the first game, he usually takes a few games to warm up. Same with the rest of the team, though hopefully they’ll be less rusty than Dom.
Just a couple hours away. I can’t wait! GO WINGS!!!
- Henrik Zetterberg will center Ray Whitney and Shanahan
- Pavel Datsyuk will be the center with Brett Hull and either Boyd Devereaux or Holmstrom
- Williams will be with Yzerman, Holmstrom or Hudler
- Niklas Kronwall was sent down to Grand Rapids farm team
The night we have all been waiting for is almost here. In less than 20 hours, the 2003/2004 NHL season begins. Anaheim v. Dallas will be on ESPN at 8:00pm Wednesday night. Then, Thursday night, LA v. Detroit will be on FSN at 7:30pm. Enjoy every game you can this season, since we might not even have a next season (at least for awhile).
Something we didn’t know before (or didn’t remember): according to EJ Hradek, Dominik Hasek agreed to a pay cut when he returned to the Wings. Instead of a base salary of $8 million with $1 million if the Wings were to win the Cup, he has a base salary of $6 million. The bonuses are $500,000 if the team makes the Conference Finals, another $500,000 if the team wins the conference title and $1 million if they win the Cup. That adds up to $8 million possible, which still saves the Wings $1 million, at least, if not $2 million. That frees up more money to put towards part of Joseph’s contract, which is something they almost certainly will have to do in the event of a trade. In exchange for this pay cut, the Wings had to give Hasek a no-trade clause. I don’t think Dom would agree to play anywhere else and that’s what makes Joseph the odd man out.
The Wings lost again last night, finishing their pre-season 2-6-1. Not very encouraging but they did look better in the last two games. I doubt the Leafs will have very many problems in net for a while. That was two nights in a row that the Leafs were saved by some serious goaltending, first by Belfour with 40 saves and last night because of Mikael Tellqvist with 31 saves. Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Holmstrom both scored on nicely set up power plays. The Wings didn’t look all that great on defense and made Manny look bad sometimes because of their lack of coverage. They still looked better than before, however. I’m just glad the exhibition is over and that the real thing is going to start soon.
Detroit News Game Notes | Detroit Free Press Game Notes
After six days in a coma, Thrasher Dan Snyder has died from his injuries in the accident with teammate Dany Heatley. This means that the charges against Heatley will be upgraded and he will likely get a new charge of vehicular homicide first degree, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Looks like this has taken a turn for the worst…
