After losing to the Coyotes 5-2 January 24 in Phoenix, the Wings turned the tables on them at the Joe, winning 5-2 to put them at first in the NHL with 78 points, tied with Philly and the Avs. The Coyotes came out with a defensive strategy, sitting back much of the first period with no players up on the forecheck, in hopes of creating a theoretical bogged down neutral ice. But the Wings have too much experience in dealing with this effort to keep the game tight, so they were able to get passes down the wings and beat the Coyotes at their own system. Legace got the start, with Marc Lamothe as backup.

In the first period, the play was pretty tight. Shots on goal were 11-10 Wings, and the Coyotes had a few good chances on Legace, but the league’s best backup was able to come up with a couple stand-on-his-head saves. Mathieu Dandenault opened the scoring at 13:45, unassisted. The goal came on a shot from the point, and was initially credited to Henrik Zetterberg, but further review showed it went off of a Coyote skate rather than Hank’s. 1-0 Wings.

In the second period, Detroit Red Wings television source Fox Sports Net had a lot of technical difficulties, at times not having audio or visual of the game. Instead, they just showed a frame of empty seats and a blank scoreboard from the pregame show. At times, static-filled audio of Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond came through on the frozen frame. It was like they were playing the game on Mars or something. Or broadcasting it over satellite phone from Baghdad. It’s pretty ridiculous. I wouldn’t come out so hard on FSN if it weren’t for the fact that technical difficulties have been commonplace there. I can’t remember a game on FSN in the past couple years where they haven’t lost video for a few seconds, a frame doesn’t freeze, or some graphic doesn’t gets messed up. I’m not a stickler, but if you’re a professional broadcast, this type of stuff should not happen. I almost miss the broadcasts on UPN50, where Wings hockey was broadcast years ago. Even though UPN50 had maybe 2 different graphics, they never had so many technical difficulties in one season as FSN has in a single game. So, through the choppy audio and few minutes of the game I actually saw, the Wings played a pretty good period. At 16:05, Brett Hull had a great power play goal, assisted by Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. 2-0 Wings. Shots in the period were 12-8 Wings.

In the third period, Chris Gratton beat Legace at 6:22 with a power play goal, assisted by Paul Mara and Mike Comrie, the new Coyote acquired in the Burke deal. It was a neat goal by Gratton, who banked it off an out-of-position Legace from the side of the net, parallel the goal line. 2-1 Wings. The Wings stormed back with an insurance goal at 8:27, from Mathieu Schneider on the power play, assisted by Tomas Holmstrom and Pavel Datsyuk, his second assist of the game to give him 58 points this season. It was a good shot by Schneider. With traffic in front, he picked the puck in between the circles and wristed it in to beat Boucher. 3-1 Wings. But the Coyotes wouldn’t let that be all she wrote. Fredrik Sjostrom scored at 9:36, assisted by Todd Reirden. 3-2 Wings. With the game tight going into the final two minutes of action, Kris Draper gave the Wings the final insurance goal they’d need, with a hard shot from the top of the left circle beating Boucher, and just trickling past the goal line. Steve Yzerman had the assist on the play. 4-2 Wings. The Coyotes pulled Boucher to get the extra man, but Kris Draper scored on the empty net unassisted for his 23rd goal of the season. 5-2 Wings. Shots in the period were 9-8 Detroit. Final Shots 32-26, also in Detroit’s favor.

It was a good effort by the Wings tonight. In what could’ve been a tough game to play against a sit-back system, the Wings came out with poise and stifled the Coyotes’ efforts. While it wasn’t the most exciting game for fans, especially with FSN standards of broadcasting their games, it was nice to see the Wings comfortably handle the struggling Coyotes.

Notables: Boucher has struggled since going on his record shutout streak: he is 3-10 in net since beating the scoreless record dating back to 1943. The Wings have only lost 3 of their last 11 decisions in the Joe. Hull tied Dave Andreychuk for all-time NHL lead in power play goals with his goal tonight. 263 power play goals, and Hull did it in 300 some less games (1,573 for Dave, 1,241 for Brett). In a post-game interview, Draper said that Hull has helped him put some more whip in his sticks.

Jamie Rivers is the goat of the game, taking two bad penalties. On the second, he pushed a Coyotes player into Legace, giving the opposition the power play and potentially hurting Manny. Fortunately, Manny was able to shake it off. With the resulting power play, Gratton scored for the Coyotes to bring them within one. After making such a bonehead play, Jamie Rivers was lucky that Schneider followed it with a goal a couple minutes later, so Jamie should take Schneider out to dinner tonight.

Intertops.com, an Internet bookmaker, has the chances that Hasek plays a full game for the Wings again before Jan. 1, 2005 at 15-1.

Pavel Datsyuk and Jason Woolley didn’t practice Tuesday. Apparently, Pavel felt under-the-weather and Woolley is a “little sore.”

(Editor: Here are the lines from the game, courtesy GWB)
Whitney-Datsyuk-Hull
Maltby-Draper-Yzerman
Thomas-Mowers-McCarty
Shanahan-Zetterberg-Holmstrom
Shanahan-Yzerman-Holmstrom

Lidstrom-Schneider
Fischer-Chelios
Rivers-Dandenault

PP-
Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Hull
Shanahan-Yzerman-Holmstrom

Whitney-Lidstrom
Lidstrom-Schneider

PK-
Maltby-Draper
Zetterberg-Datsyuk
Shanahan-Yzerman

Lidstrom-Chelios
Fischer-Schneider

Net-
Manny Legace

Tonight is the third of four games between these two teams this season. They skated to a 3-3 tie on January 6th in Detroit and the Coyotes won 5-2 on January 24th in Phoenix.

The Wings are 5-1-2 in their last eight games and are coming off a 2-1 win over the Oilers on Monday night. They have a league-best 21-5-3-0 record at home and are 2-1 so far in a five-game homestand. The other two games were a 5-2 loss to the Avs and a 4-2 win over the Sharks. The Wings’ leading scorer is Pavel Datsyuk, who has gone cold lately, with 56 points.

The Coyotes are 1-7-1-1 since beating the Wings on the 24th, ten games ago and they have earned only ten points over their previous 17 games. They are coming off a 4-2 loss to the Blues on Monday but beat the Stars 3-2 on Saturday. They are exactly .500 on the road (10-10-10-1) and that loss to the Blues made them 0-1-0 on a short two-game road trip. The Coyotes’ leading scorer is Shane Doan, who has 59 points.

Dave Lewis said Legace will get the start tonight. He said earlier that Marc Lamothe might get a start sometime this week so it looks like Friday’s game against St. Louis would be the day.

Pavel Datsyuk and Jason Woolley did not practice yesterday. Pavel stayed home because he felt sick and Woolley was sore. Both of them are expected to play tonight.

Remember, the game starts at 7:00 EST tonight because of a national broadcast.

This should be a good chance for the Wings to continue what they started on Monday night. The Oilers game was an improvement on Saturday’s debacle but they’ll need to play even better tonight to beat the Coyotes, who have a very good goalie in Brian Boucher. As long as they play with a high level of energy and pursue the puck, they should be fine. They will have to look for breaks because Boucher is sure to make scoring tough.

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Jerry Green of the Detroit News believes Derian Hatcher could be the catalyst the Wings need for their run for the Cup this year. Given the level of toughness and physical play Hatcher will bring to the team, I’m inclined to agree that he will at least be a catalyst if not the catalyst. It will be the same as adding a star defenseman at the trade deadline and really should only have a positive effect. The only negative effect it could have would be to disrupt the fairly strong chemistry that has developed so far this season between the Wings’ members of the blueline crew. Sure, his timing will be off at first but a player of his caliber should be able to overcome that in a relatively short period of time. The Wings as a whole have done pretty well without him all season but they will definitely need his services in the playoffs.

He has been participating in full practices with the team and apparently could have returned for Saturday’s game against Colorado but the Wings are not going to rush him back. The plan is for him to return for the game against Tampa Bay on March 8th. He would have 15 games to prepare for the playoffs were he to in fact return that night. I’m a little concerned that those 15 games will not be enough for him to get acclimated with his teammates but he has had a lot of practice time with them lately. I think he can pull it off.

The Wings will be very well off with Derian Hatcher back in the lineup and would, in my opinion, only need one more forward to make themselves as strong as they could be on paper going in to the big dance.

The Wings played a much better game last night than they played Saturday. After a fairly weak first period where they gave up 17 shots, they dominated the Oilers for the rest of the game, especially in the second period where they allowed no shots, something they haven’t done since ’96.

In the first period, the younger Oilers team came out with a little more jump than the Wings did and they proceeded to out-shoot and out-chance their opponents. They scored a goal that was disallowed because of an apparently inconclusive replay. According to the rule, the puck has to be seen crossing the line. In this case, it entered Manny Legace’s glove just as it was crossing the line so you couldn’t actually see it cross even though it was obvious it did. So they could not allow the goal. Personally, I think that’s a rule that needs to be clarified. Mickey Redmond made a good point last night during the broadcast when he said changing that rule would “open a new can of worms.” He’s right, it would, because teams would then be justified in crashing the net even harder which would lead to more goalie injuries. However, I do believe the rule should be changed so that if a goalie crosses the line as a result of his own actions and not because someone knocked him down, the goal should be allowed. I’d hate to be a Wings fan and have such a clear and obvious goal be disallowed because of a lame technicality like that. I’m glad it was last night, though! Soon afterwards, the Wings scored a shorthanded goal as a result of a hustle play by Kirk Maltby. He was on the forecheck and pressuring the Oilers’ defense behind the net and got a lucky bounce (or an un-forced error as Mr. Redmond kept saying). He skated out of the corner and sent the puck to a wide open Draper who one-timed it past Tommy Salo. You know, a lot of people say Nick Lidstrom is the most indispensable player the Wings have. I guess that’s true but I cannot imagine where the Wings would be without Maltby and Draper. They have got to be the most underrated players in the league and the two most important players on the team. The things they do every night are invaluable. Everyone knows what they can do to a team and yet they are still able to keep on doing it. It’s amazing to me.

The second period was the Wings’ period because they completely dominated the Oilers. A good example of this there were at least two full consecutive shifts near the start of the period which were spent completely in the Oilers’ zone. The Wings kept some solid pressure on the Oilers for a full 20 minutes and though they only got one goal for it, it was still fun to watch. Mathieu Schneider scored that goal after making a move to get around an Oilers player from close in. Salo was trying to draw a goalie interference penalty but he wasn’t touched and should have been more concerned with allowing a goal like that.

The third period was more of the Oilers coming on. They outshot the Wings again but only got one goal, from Jarret Stoll. They waited too long to pull Salo and didn’t come very close to tying the game up near the end.

The refs really swallowed their whistles last night, at least in terms of calling things on the Oilers. The Wings only had two power plays and the 2nd started with 13 seconds left in the game. It wasn’t the most mugging-happy game but there were a lot more penalties committed than were called, that’s for sure.

Manny Legace was very sharp and I was sure he’d get a shutout. ESPN made him the #1 star of the game and I would agree with that. He made some very good saves and kept the Wings in it when they were being outshot. Tommy Salo was very solid too and looked more like he did before the Olympics and that awful goal he allowed. He gave the Oilers a chance to win the game or at least get a point but they couldn’t pull it out.

I thought Dandenault looked pretty good at center. His line (Thomas and McCarty) played well and generated some good chances throughout the night.

Georges Laraque played a lot last night (16:59). He is the subject of a lot of trade rumors and I wonder if the Oilers were trying to sell him to the Wings, in a way. The Wings need size badly and he would give them that for sure. It will be interesting to see what happens at the trade deadline.

The Chicago Blackhawks traded center Steve Sullivan to the Nashville Predators. An intra-division trade like that is unusual, especially considering how the Hawks and Preds will likely be competing for a playoff spot in the coming years. The Predators got him for some 2004 and 2005 second round draft picks. Pretty small price to pay in a trade which will effect the balance of power in the Central Division at least enough to concern the Wings a little. Nashville is a rising team and now they have some more skill, which will only help them. Combined with the rumors surrounding Alexei Zhamnov, it looks like the Hawks may be giving up.

The Wings are now 2-1 in their five-game homestand which continues Wednesday against the Coyotes and ends Friday against the Blues. They are trailing the Avs by two points for first place in the Division with 72.

Freep | New | ESPN | Box Score

Lines- (courtesy GWB)
Maltby-Draper-Yzerman
Whitney-Datysuk-Hull
Shanahan-Zetterberg-Holmstrom
Thomas-Dandenault-McCarty
Shanahan-Zetterberg-McCarty

Lidstrom-Schneider
Fischer-Chelios
Rivers-Woolley

4 on 4-
Zetterberg-Datsyuk
Maltby-Draper

Lidstrom-Schneider

PP-
Shanahan-Yzerman-Holmstrom
Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Hull
Maltby-Draper-Yzerman

Whitney-Lidstrom
Lidstrom-Schneider

PK-
Draper-Maltby
Zetterberg-Datsyuk
Shanahan-Yzerman

Lidstrom-Chelios
Fischer-Schneider

Net-
Manny Legace

Defenseman Chris Chelios turned 42 this past January on the 25th and shows no signs of slowing down. �I feel good physically. I always said it [retirement] would be a physical thing. I�ll never get tired of the game,� Chelios said. Between playing hockey, owning a restaurant, running a charity foundation, and spending time with his family, it is surprising that age hasn�t played a factor into Cheli�s amount of responsibilities. �You guys keep trying to retire me. I really didn�t think it was my last time at the United Center. If it was going to be my last time, I would have wanted to salute and thank the crowd, acknowledge them. But hopefully, it wasn�t (his last game in Chicago),” Chelios said.

Chelios grew up attending Blackhawks� games and bought his first pair of skates for $5 at a local Ace Hardware in Chicago. His father, Gus, valued hard work and appreciated the game of hockey both of which were passed on down to his children. As a kid, Cheli played hockey for Mt. Carmel High during his freshman and sophomore years and also became quite the pitcher and shortstop. However, he had to make a decision between the two sports in hopes to play at higher levels. �I wanted him to play hockey because he liked it � not because I liked it. I told him, �Whatever sport you pick, I�ll give you my support 100%. I�ll be behind you, but tough all the way,�� Gus said.

Even as a youngster, Cheli�s hard work defined his play of the game. He would spend most of his time at the rink and when he couldn�t, he ran hills to develop stamina. Once his family moved to Poway, Chris made the 10-mile trip to the rink with his equipment in order to practice and then rode his bike the 10-miles back. �He’s always been like that. As a kid, he’d walk for miles. He’d work out and do things the other kids didn’t do away from the ice. We never had to tell him to do that,� Susan Chelios said.

During the summer of 1981, the Montreal Canadiens drafted Cheli late into the second round of the NHL draft. All of a sudden, colleges battled with one another to get him onto their school�s team. Chelios went on to play under Bob Johnson and Jeff Sauer in college at Wisconsin, which he chose over North Dakota. In 1983, Cheli won a national championship while playing for the Badgers.

In his first full season in the NHL, Chelios was named to the league�s All-Rookie team. In only his second year with the Canadiens, Chris won his first Stanley Cup. He later became the first American to captain the Montreal team and with this organization he picked up a Norris Trophy win. �He�s a coaches dream because he sets such a good example. He was an integral part of our team,� fellow Montreal teammate Steve Martinson said.

Cheli headed back to his hometown of Chicago to play for the Blackhawks where he played almost nine full seasons. In these nine years, Chelios obtained two more Norris Trophy awards, was named the team captain, and broke numerous team records such as the most career penalty minutes (1,495), became the first defenseman to lead the team in scoring in team history, and set a new club record with the most playoff points by a defenseman (21 points in 18 games).

Chris became the guy for Red Wing fans to hate after he nailed Sergei Federov across the face with his stick, but following his signing with the Wings in the 98/99 season Cheli is loved by fans, not hated. In his first full season with the Wings the following year, Chelios had a career high plus/minus rating of +48, which was the 2nd best in the NHL that year. During the 2001-2002 season, Cheli helped bring the Stanley Cup back to Hockeytown marking his second Cup win.

Through his numerous knee surgeries and a broken thumb, Chelios has shown that his determination and work ethic proves stronger over age and injuries. �With Cheli, you’ve got a guy with three Norris trophies and two Stanley Cups and he’s 40-something and still going strong. He’s got every reason to relax and he’s out here working harder than everybody else. Other guys see that, or see the success that it brings, and want to see what he is up to and try to emulate some of those things,� personal trainer T.R. Goodman said. For these reasons, Cheli makes a great mentor to 23-year old Jiri Fischer. When Fischer tore his left ACL in November of the previous season, Chelios helped Jiri through the difficulties of rehabilitation and tricks of the trade for defenseman.

�If you ask me, he is the American hockey player,� fellow USA teammate Jeremy Roenick said. Chris has played an important role in the USA hockey team both as a leader and a player. USA coach Herb Brooks named Chelios captain for the 2002 Olympic games and he also captained the team back in �98. Once Cheli decides to retire, he would like the opportunity to remain involved with the USA team. �”I don’t know if it’s coaching, or management, but I’d like to help out. If it’s coaching in the tournaments (World Cup, World Championships, Olympics), or whatever, I’d be more than happy to do it. You have to get players to participate, someone maybe they can respect with an NHL background,� Chelios said.

In 2001, Cheli�s sister Gigi lost her fight with cancer and in memory of her- Chelios contributes to the Make-A-Wish foundation and other cancer foundations. He also hosts an annual Charity Golf Classic that usually raises around $400,000 to benefit the Cheli�s Children Foundation, which helps abused children in the Chicago area. In addition to his charity work, Chelios opened his own restaurant, Cheli�s Chili Bar, in Dearborn. �I just wanted to put back something into the community. It�s something to do after I finish playing hockey,� Chris said.

Between his hockey playing, restaurant running, and volunteering, Chelios is here to stay in Hockeytown, USA.

Tonight is the third of four games between these two teams this season. The first game ended in a 4-4 tie on November 1 and the Wings blew the Oilers out 7-1 on November 26 in the second game.

The Wings haven’t lost two games in a row since they dropped two to Boston on Jan. 7th and 10th and will look to avoid doing so tonight. They are coming off a decisive 5-2 loss to Colorado on Saturday and are 1-1 so far in a five-game homestand. The Avs outplayed the Wings for much of the game and scored the last four goals of the game. The Wings were 4-0-2 leading up to the loss. They are now four games behind Colorado for first place in the Conference.

The Oilers are 3-1-1 in their last five games and are coming off a 2-2 tie with Nashville on Sunday. Their last three wins came at home and they are 0-1-1 so far on a four-game road trip.

Manny Legace will get the start again and will be backed up by the Griffins’ Marc Lamothe. Dave Lewis said Lamothe may get a start sometime later this week.

Chris Chelios did not practice yesterday but will play tonight, according to Lewis. He took a shot off his foot during the loss Saturday but finished the game.

There’s a good chance (50-50) that Mathieu Dandenault will play center tonight, between Darren McCarty and Steve Thomas. Lewis had planned on having Mark Mowers or Jason Williams center that line while putting Dandenault back on defense. When Dandenault informed him that he used to play center (before junior), Lewis decided to give it a try. Dandy has will have played every position other than goalie if Lewis does in fact use him at center tonight.

This is an important week for the Wings, who have home games against Edmonton tonight, Phoenix on Wednesday and St. Louis on Friday. After that they will be on a three-game trip to Western Canada. The Oilers, Coyotes and Blues are all fighting to make the playoffs and will give the Wings a tough time. Tonight they will have to contend with the speed and youth of the Oilers. If they play their “A” game, the Wings shouldn’t have much trouble. They’ll have to show more effort than they did on Saturday, though, because the Oilers aren’t going to roll over and die.

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Also: Here is the link to the audio file of Saturday’s Hockey Insider. I come on at around 20 minutes into the show, though you should listen to everything leading up to it. When listening, remember that I am not a radio personality and that was only my second time being on the air. I apologize in advance for how bad I sound.

Many thanks to Rick Morris for giving me the opportunity to be on his show and for being such a faithful (and vocal) viewer of this site. Thanks for the numerous and extremely generous plugs as well. I really appreciate it, Rick. Rick and Joe run a very good show and I’d recommend it to anyone.

Christy: What do you find as the most rewarding aspect of your job? The most challenging?
Jim Nill: The most rewarding aspect of my job is having the opportunity to see the next stars that will someday play in the NHL. With my job I am able to see these players when they are 16-17 years of age and I know that someday they will be playing somewhere in the NHL. It’s a great challenge to scout and recruit the next players for the Detroit Red Wings organization. Due to our success as a franchise we are always selecting low in the draft where it is harder to find players, but it is a great challenge to find the next “diamond in the rough”.

How much of a change was it to go from a job being a professional player to scouting for future prospects?
During my 12 years of professional hockey I played for the Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Winnipeg Jets, and Vancouver Canucks. It was a huge change to go from playing to scouting. As a player you were always looking at players who were 20 to 35 years of age. In the scouting business you are looking at young men who are 16-17 years of age. Some have developed physically and mentally, others have not, so you must try to project what they will develop into when they are 20-30 years of age. You are dealing with human beings and it is not always easy to figure people out. All different factors can affect their development, ie.. money, school, friends, family, outside influences, their commitment and drive, etc… It is not an exact science to figure out people.

Who was it that ‘found’ Datsyuk? Did you have any role in his discovery?
Hakan Andersson, our European scout was the first person to see Pavel. I was the person who drafted him and then I worked on his development after we drafted Pavel.

What made you think Pavel was so special when other teams passed him up?
Pavel had very good skills, but was very small and weak. When we drafted him he was 5’8″ and about 145 pounds soaking wet. We liked his skills, but did not know if he would every grow enough and/or get strong enough to play in the NHL. As we can all see now he did develop.

Has Pavel met or exceeded the team’s expectations?
Pavel has exceeded our expectations, When we brought him over to play 2 years ago we knew he could play in the NHL, but we did not expect him to reach this level of stardom so quickly.

After deciding that you would like to see a certain player (like Datsyuk) play for the Wings, what process or steps do you follow to get him on the team?
Once we have drafted the player we monitor his development wherever he is playing. We analyze whether he is in a good environment to develop and monitor his progress. We watch the level of competition he is playing at, watch his strength development, and talk with the player to see if it is better for him to remain in his home environment or should he be somewhere else. There are all different factors to take into consideration. Once we feel that he is mature enough physically and mentally we must determine if he is able to play at either the AHL level (Grand Rapids) or do we feel he can step right into playing for Detroit Red Wings. The final piece of the puzzle is to get him signed to a contract.

If you had to define your job and role in the Wings organization in a few sentences, what would they be?
My job description is being in charge of all drafting and developing of players for the Detroit Red Wings. To continue the success of our franchise we must have a steady influx of young players developing in our system at all times.

How often do you go on scouting trips in lets say a months time? How do you balance work and family?
I am at a hockey game 5 nights out of 7 during every week from October to May. I travel to Europe 5-6 times a year for a week to 10 days at a time. I am fortunate that I make my own schedule so I am always around for any family function. Also I live in a great hockey location, there is every level of hockey around the Michigan area which allows me to be home every night. I am also very fortunate that I have a great family who can tolerate my travels and they are very indepedent.