On the Wings

Update (2:33 PM): Ansar Khan reports that Franzen will be out at least a week with a concussion and left knee injury. That means he should be back for the December 1st game against Minnesota.

Khan also mentions Chris Chelios thinks Mitchell should be suspended for the hit. You wish, Cheli.

Unrelated: apparently, Hasek will start on Friday against the Blues. This stands in contrast to other reports that Joey MacDonald would start, with Dom backing him up. With the Wings in Nashville the next night, it’s an interesting decision to start Dom against one of the league’s worst teams. Maybe they’ll start him two nights in a row, after all. - Matt

The Wings blew a two-goal third period lead and lost in overtime last night to the Canucks in their first game back from a three-game road trip. It was an uncharacteristic game for this team as the defense allowed 30 shots as well as a comeback by Vancouver

Dominik Hasek was in net for the Wings and didn’t look bad on most of the 30 shots he faced, though a couple of the goals he allowed were stinkers (more because of bad luck than anything else, though).

The first goal, which came at :18 of the first period, was off a major deflection at the top of the circle and he didn’t have much of a chance to stop it.

On the second goal (4:50 of the third), he came out to challenge Henrik Sedin and made the save. The rebound, however, went right to Markus Naslund and he put it right into the net which had been vacated by Dom for the initial save.

Dom just fell down on the third goal (7:23, third), having stepped in a rut or something, making it easy for Brendan Morrison to put in the net.

The game winnner in overtime was due to a bad turnover at the Vancouver blueline during a line change, giving Morrisson an easy breakaway. He beat Dom with a quick shot to the 5-hole to put it away.

There were a few instances where Hasek was slow to get up after making a save. Hopefully that was more him being cautious than actually experiencing pain.

The Wings’ first goal, at 9:24 of the first, came off a nice play by Robert Lang in the corner. With Willie Mitchell handling it, Lang came up and poked it away before stepping around him and picking it up. He centered it to Mathieu Schneider, who got a backhand shot on net that was stopped by Roberto Luongo. The puck went up in the air, however, and Schneider got his stick on it to knock it into the net. The play was reviewed briefly but the goal stood.

Their second goal, which came at 12:05 of the first, was a bit of a lucky bounce, though it may have gone in anyway because Henrik Zetterberg was right there. With the Wings on the power play, Nick Lidstrom took a shot from the left wing, aiming at Luongo’s far side. Luongo got a piece of it but it ended up bouncing off Matthias Ohlund’s leg and into the net.

The Wings scored a goal just before the 19:00 mark of the second period when Pavel Datsyuk made a nice play to Mikael Samuelsson, who one-timed the puck into the net. The goal was waived off due to “incidental contact,” however, because Tomas Holmstrom had been pushed by Ohlund into Roberto Luongo. Okay, that’s fair. But why wasn’t Holmstrom called for goaltender interference? Isn’t it an either/or situation? Either it’s a goal or it’s a penalty. Doesn’t make any sense. Was it because Ohlund pushed Homer into the net? Then why wasn’t Ohlund given a penalty? Very strange call (or non-call).

The Wings’ actual third goal came at 19:00, just seconds after Samuelsson’s was disallowed. Kris Draper and Dan Cleary broke free on a 2-on-1, with Draper carrying. He made a great pass over a sprawling Willie Mitchell and Cleary redirected it on net. Luongo made the save but the puck trickled out to his right as he fell. Cleary, demonstrating great hands and patience, picked it up, shifted forehand to backhand and roofed it to make it 3-1. Great goal.

Okay, now that I’m done talking about the goals, I can move on to The Hit.

With Mathieu Schneider in the box for interference, the Wings were on the penalty kill. The Canucks weren’t doing a very good job setting up and generating pressure so when the Wings gained control after a failed attempt by Vancouver, they decided to carry it out of the zone rather than just shoot it.

Johan Franzen took the puck up the left wing and met the Vancouver defense at their blueline. The puck got knocked back to Franzen’s wing man, Pavel Datsyuk, and Johan turned his head left to follow the puck. Just as he got his head forward again, Willie Mitchell came across and decked him, laying his shoulder directly into the side of Franzen’s face. Johan took the brunt of the hit on the jaw and was knocked silly. He dropped his stick, his gloves flew off, and his legs went sprawling (bending his left knee at a bad angle) as he turned and fell backwards onto the ice.

The play was quickly whistled dead and Franzen was immediately attended to by the trainer. While this was going on, FSN’s color man, Mickey Redmond, began talking about how players today need to learn to let up on a play like that rather than follow through on their hit when someone’s head is open like that. I couldn’t agree more. The play may be currently legal but with hits like this coming with more frequency, it may be time to change the rule. It doesn’t make any sense that players can be called for the most insignificant contact with their sticks while they can get away with giving someone a concussion like that.

My views on the subject are already known so I won’t say much more, except that the Wings need to stop being so tolerant of these hits on their teammates. Reading some of the quotes from the guys today seems to indicate they aren’t happy with what happened:

“I thought it was a cheap hit. Frankie’s a big guy, went down hard. Willie Mitchell’s coming off a concussion and going out there head-hunting, that stuff comes back to haunt you at the end of the day. The only way to get back at them is to lay a hit on their good players, or Willie Mitchell. It just seems Willie never goes in the corner.’’ - Dan Cleary

Ken Holland, it’s time to call up someone that will defend his teammates. Chris Chelios, Pavel Datsyuk, and Jason Williams approached Mitchell after the play but they can’t do anything but yell at him. It’s time for the team to send a message that they aren’t going to tolerate hits like that.

What’s sad is Mitchell did get a penalty on the play but only because the puck was gone. It was an interference call, not roughing. Had Johan still been carrying the puck, Mitchell would have gotten away with it completely. Disgusting.

Going back to the comment about insignificant contact with sticks, two Wings penalties in the third period look particularly ridiculous in light of the Franzen hit. Both Lidstrom and Holmstrom were called for hooking, two seconds apart, giving Vancouver a 5-on-3 power play on which they would eventually score. The call on Lidstrom would have been bad enough, because the contact there was so slight I don’t know how the ref could justify calling it, but the call on Holmstrom was incredibly bad. He literally did not touch the Vancouver player.

Horrible officiating and an unbelievable hyopcrisy, where Franzen gets a concussion and an injured knee on a hit that resulted in an interference penalty but Homer and Nick get called for hooking when only one of them made contact.

Anyway, it was overall a very unsatisfying game. Hopefully Friday’s match against the Blues will be better.

Happy Thanksgiving!