On the Wings

Update (1:31 AM): TSN reports that Williams does not have a concussion, that he has no headache, and that he is at home resting. He’s slated to return to practice tomorrow. Apparently, he needed 30 stitches for the pressure cut on his forehead. It’s definitely good to hear for certain that he’s okay. - Matt

The Wings extended their win streak to seven last night as they shut out the Edmonton Oilers at home with a smothering defensive effort. Dominik Hasek started for the Wings and faced his first shot at :21 of the second period, which gives you some idea about Edmonton’s offensive, and the Wings’ defensive, prowess. The Oilers managed a mere 16 shots on net last night while allowing the Wings 45 shots.

Rather than recapping the game in chronological order, I’m just going to express some impressions and explain why I came away from such a dominating win with a feeling that we had somehow lost.

Nearly a year after Jiri Fischer collapsed on the bench, the Wings had another scary incident take place during the game as Jason Williams was nearly decapitated by Raffi Torres after attempting a wrap-around shot on the Edmonton net at 10:54 of the second period. Williams landed face first on the ice, went limp, and slid into the corner as play continued. Dwayne Roloson, however, got the attention of the officials and they stopped the play.

Piet Van Zant came out and FSN cut to commercials. When they came back, Tony Colucci, the team physician was on the ice with a stretcher. After a few minutes, Williams was taken off with his body held nearly immobile. By that time, we had seen his leg move but as he was carried to the ambulance, he waved his arms to the crowd. A few minutes later, FSN reported that he had never lost consciousness, that he was okay, and that he was being taken for observation and stitches for a cut on his face.

Now, Torres’ hit was technically legal. In any other situation, it would have been just a good, solid bodycheck. However, the circumstances made it a dirty hit, as far as I’m concerned, regardless of its technical legality.

Williams came out from behind the net on the wrap-around attempt with Oilers captain Jason Smith covering him out front. Smith came at him as Jason released the shot and had Williams’ full attention. Jason’s head was definitely not down, as some have reported. He was just looking at the defenseman directly in front of him.

With Williams looking at Smith and preparing to avoid a hit there, Torres came from the top of the circles at high speed and blind-sided him, laying his shoulder into his face and sending him to the ice. Torres had ample time to pull up or avoid the hit but he made zero attempt to do so and instead took advantage of a vulnerable Williams by hitting him with 30 feet’s worth of momentum behind him.

Regardless of the legality of the hit, it was dirty because it demonstrated a complete lack of respect for Williams’ safety. This was no Scott Stevens hit where the victim had their head down and were asking for it. Williams had his head up but was looking in the wrong direction. He had already taken his shot and was well covered by Smith, not to mention Roloson, who had made the save and probably had the rebound under control. Torres’ hit was completely unecessary.

He’s lucky Smith backed off or else they could have hit Williams at the same time and we might be talking about a serious injury today. Because the contact was technically legal, Torres got off without any sort of penalty, but that doesn’t make what he did okay. I honestly do not see how it wasn’t charging, especially given that Mathieu Schneider was given a charging penalty later in the game for a much tamer play. Torres had an enormous amount of speed built up and there is no way he had only taken two steps. He had Williams tagged from the top of the slot.

You can try to make the argument that he didn’t have intent to injure but that won’t fly with me. Sure, he probably didn’t think, “Yes! Here’s my chance to give someone a concussion!” but he did see a chance to nail someone and he didn’t back off when he should have. He says he needs to finish his checks, and that’s a fair assertion because that’s his game. However, he should have held off there.

Williams may not be one of the game’s super stars but you’d think the league would be interested in protecting its players from incidents like that. Again, Williams did not have his head down so you can’t say he had it coming. There’s nothing wrong with laying big hits on guys but there is a line between safe hitting and unsafe hitting that is wholly separate from the question of whether or not it was technically legal. I think Torres crossed it.

Off Wing has the replay, if you’d like to see it.

Moving on.

I have to say that, as a whole, the officiating last night was awful. Whereas Edmonton seemingly got away with murder, the Wings were victims of some ridiculous calls. Some examples:

• The first penalty of the game was a tripping call on Niklas Kronwall, who was apparently guilty of being next to Ryan Smyth when the latter lost an edge at center.
• The Oilers’ second power play was the result of a crap cross-checking call on a nice play by Mathieu Schneider at the blueline.
• A Nick Lidstrom high sticking penalty in the second period was lame because his stick hit the Edmonton player when another Oiler lifted it into his teammate’s face. Probably a good call due to the League’s mandate that a player control his stick at all times, but they missed an obvious high sticking call on Torres later in the game when his swinging stick hit Schneider in the face.
• The ultimate insult came at 17:52 of the second period when Mathieu Schneider was called for charging Petr Sykora on the corner. Sure, it probably was charging, but then so was Torres’ hit. The fact that it was called on Schneider’s relatively innocuous play on Sykora and not on Torres’ dangerous headhunting hit on Williams was pretty ridiculous.
• Schneider was justly called at 5:06 of the third for boarding Winchester. He should have pulled up and let off on the play, but even so, it felt wrong after seeing the Oilers get away with similar plays the whole game.

Now, the Wings’ penalty killing was excellant last night so facing so many power plays wasn’t really that big a deal. Often, complaints about officiating are just whining and groundless, but I try to be realistic and relatively fair, despite being a Wings homer, and truthfully, they got the shaft a few times last night. I don’t know if it’s because of some kind of unconscious desire to make up for “Magoo’s” gaffe the other night but some calls were just plain mystifying. After the Williams hit, it was real rich to see Wings players getting called for charging and boarding while Edmonton was just as rough as before.

I loved seeing Danny Markov defend himself so ably when Steve Staios went after him, conceivably because he was seeking revenge for the hit Jarret Stoll and Ethan Moreau’s shoulder injury.

First of all, the hit on Stoll was perfectly okay and there’s no way Edmonton has any claim to retribution on it, beyond what Moreau already got. You may be crying “hypocrite!” but think for a second. Stoll was skating through center with his attention on getting into the zone. He wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings but if he had been, he could have avoided Markov’s hit. Jason Williams, on the other hand, was down low, having shot the puck tenths of a second earlier. He was both looking for a rebound and at avoiding Jason Smith when Torres nailed him from the side. You can’t say Williams wasn’t paying attention. Markov on Stoll = legal and okay, Torres on Williams = legal but not okay.

Second, it’s even more stupid to go after him for what happened to Moreau. Markov had nothing to do with that. Moreau hurt himself. So go ahead and fight Markov, Staios, and give your team 17 minutes in penalties. You’re lucky the Wings’ power play is weaker than a Ford Fiesta.

The Oilers in general last night were pretty nasty. Apparently, they got to Detroit at 3:00 AM Wednesday morning, so I don’t know if it was because they didn’t get their beauty sleep or what. Maybe they should have taken a nap instead of skating earlier in the day.

Comment on Nick: at one point, Ales Hemsky tried about five moves on Lidstrom but didn’t fool him. Later in the game, Hemsky tried one average deke to the outside and Nick conceded the net to him. Fortunately, Hemsky basically skated into Hasek and didn’t get a goal, but it was slightly disturbing to see Lidstrom beat like that.

Good to see Zetterberg scoring again. Keep it up Hank!

Pavel Datsyuk looks slow lately. He still has some good dekes but he rarely, if ever, turns on the jets any more, so most of his plays seem to fizzle out. I wonder if he’s hurt. You’d think that if he was, they’d sit him for a few games like they did with Schneider and are doing with Andreas Lilja. Something to watch, for sure.

I don’t know how Hasek is keeping hiimself entertained back there while his defense keeps the puck away. What do you do as a goalie when you go a whole period without facing a shot? The Wings’ defense might want to consider letting up a little bit or else Dom is going to be at risk of hurting himself when he does finally face a shot after long stretches of inactivity. You can see Dom trying to stay loose by leaving the net far more often than he needs to. That’s reason enough to let him see more shots. He did get his 70th career shutout, though.

As well as the Wings played last night, the Oilers played poorly, with the exception of Roloson. And Edmonton fans are not happy.

The Williams hit and the poor officiating had me come away from the game with a real feeling of disgust. I did not feel like it had been a shutout win at all. It felt more like a loss, strangely enough.

Well, they’ve won 7 in a row, and are one of the hottest teams in the league right now. Strangely enough for a Red Wings team, it’s due mainly to their smothering defense rather than an offensive superiority. Regardless of how badly the Oilers played last night, it was a stiff test for the Wings, especially for the PK units, and good preparation for Friday’s game against the Predators.