The Wings opened their Western Canada road trip with a win, beating Vancouver 3-2 light at the GM Place. It wasn’t their best game, but it was their ninth in a row, which ties a team record. Yep, Damien Cox and Co., the Wings definitely suck now. Idiots.
Dominik Hasek made the start for the Wings and didn’t look bad for the most part. He made 18 saves, with the two that got through resulting from 1) a major gaffe on his part and 2) a multi-player screen. So, although the first Canucks goal was not a good play by him, I’m still not worried about the goaltending.
The power play continues to disappoint, though tonight they came oh-so-close a few times, perhaps indicating that the unit is ready to break out.
Mike Babcock gave the recent call-up, Josh Langfeld, the privilage of starting the game, putting him out there with Kris Draper and Johan Franzen at the puck drop. Langfeld made the most of his first shift as a Red Wing, generating a couple chances down low and showing good energy.
Next in the rotation were Mikael Samuelsson and Valtteri Filppula playing alongside Pavel Datsyuk. Their shift was uneventful except for a turnover at center by Samuelsson, whose deke didn’t quite work. Fortunately, nothing came of it.
There was a pretty good pace to start the game, with both teams skating hard and moving the puck in the offensive end. The pace was broken up somewhat by a Langfeld penalty at 3:55. He had fallen in the offensive end and hooked his stick around Willie Mitchell’s mid-section in an effort to prevent Mitchell skating away with the puck. Not very smart on Langfeld’s part.
Fortunately, the Canucks power play was almost entirely inept. The Wings killed off the penalty pretty easily and were within half a minute of its expiration when Johan Franzen was called for “holding.” Whatever. With a 5-on-3 power play, Markus Naslund cycled the down low before sending it out to the top of the circles to Sami Salo. Salo fumbled the pass and the puck left the zone, effectively killing off the two-man advantage.
The Canucks pretty much squandered the remaining time, with such plays as Matt Cooke going offsides when Taylor Pyatt cut right as he went over the blueline with the puck. It wasn’t until the power play was over that the Canucks actually got a good scoring chance, which took place at the side of the net immediately after Franzen came out of the box. Nothing came of it, however.
Around 8:00, some nice work by Jiri Hudler resulted in a good scoring chance. He got the puck to Henrik Zetterberg at the top of the circles and Hank skated into the slot before passing it to Robert Lang on his right wing. Lang took a couple steps and then shot the puck into Luongo as Zetterberg headed to the net. Why Lang thought he could snipe a big goalie like Luongo, who didn’t leave much net to shoot at, when he had Hank streaking, I don’t know. Oh well.
Not long after that, the Canucks generated some good pressure in the Wings zone as they cycled the puck around the boards. It resulted in a good scoring chance but the puck was cleared and the score remained 0-0. Going the other way not long after that, Pavel Datsyuk had the puck on a 2-on-1 with Mikael Samuelsson on the other wing. Datsyuk went way down the left wing and sent the puck across to Samuelsson but Marc Chouinard had him covered and it didn’t click. Nice play, though.
At 10:45, Mathieu Schneider and Langfeld had a rush, with Schneider shooting the puck and Langfeld pouncing on the rebound but not getting a real shot off himself as the puck ended up in the corner.
Pavel Datsyuk showed some good jump around 12:40 when he took the puck around behind the net and sent a slightly inaccurate pass to Brett Lebda at the blueline. Lebda, who seemed surprised at the pass, couldn’t quite get it and it went over the line. It was good to see the effort by Pavel, though.
Around 13:19, Chris Chelios lobbed the puck at the net and Samuelsson went after the rebound but was called for goaltender interference. Pretty lame call, I have to say. The Wings killed off the resulting power play without much trouble.
As the period got nearer the end, the game started to slow down a bit. The last few minutes were pretty uneventful except for a few things. A Sedin brother let loose a hard shot off the right wing that forced Dom to make a quick save with his right pad late in the period. Not long after that, Filppula pantsed a couple Canucks players on his way out of the zone with the puck, though fortunately for them, it didn’t result in anything significant.
The period ended with a nice pressure shift by Draper’s line.
The Wings finally got a power play at 1:18 of the second period wehen Sami Salo went off for slashing. They set up and cycled the puck. Samuelsson found himself all alone out front with at 1:50 but Roberto Luongo came out to challenge and stoned him. Nick Lidstrom sent the puck off the outside of the goalpost later in the power play, but that was the closest the Wings came to scoring. A pretty anemic power play, once again.
At 4:36, Filppula put the Wings ahead 1-0 on a bit of a fluke goal. With Kris Draper and Dan Cleary cycling the puck along the boards in the Canucks end, Valtteri came on and joined them. He ended up with the puck out to Luongo’s right, and he took a shot. It went off Patrick Coulombe before going up and over Luongo into the net. Good to see Filppula back on the scoresheet.
Less than half a minute later, Cooke went off for tripping Zetterberg. This time, the power play was a bit stronger, with good chances all around, from Samuelsson to Franzen. Still, no goal.
Not long after the Cooke penalty expired, the Wings took a dumb bench minor penalty as Draper got excited about a possible breakaway and Datsyuk took too long to get off the ice. Draper got the puck at the blue line, just behind the Vancouver defense, but the play was whistled down immediately.
The Canucks made them pay for their mistake by tying the game up at 7:49. Markus Naslund took the initial shot off the right wing and Hasek made the save. He didn’t control the rebound well at all, however, and Henrik Sedin jumped on it, knocking the puck over and into the net. 1-1.
After the goal, the teams traded chances, with Markus Naslund’s 2-on-1 slapper countered by a Zetterberg-Lang hookup, with both goalies making the necessary stops. After some up and down play, Kevin Bieksa took matters into his own hands and skated coast-to-coast with the puck down the left wing. He waltzed into the Detroit end and forced Hasek to come out to challenge. Somehow the puck stayed out of the empty net. Not the brightest moment for the Wings’ defense (Bieksa is a defenseman himself!).
Going the other way, Dan Cleary and Brett Lebda had a nice scoring chance, with Cleary just knocking the puck wide on a flurry.
The Wings got another power play at 15:58, and though they passed well and generated some pressure, it was once again a disappointing effort.
The period wound down without much more to report. Not the most exciting 20 minutes of hockey.
The third period opened with the former UM hockey player Josh Langfeld laying out Ryan Kesler, formerly of OSU. There was a bit of talk last night about the Michigan/Ohio State football game this weekend, with representatives from both teams predicting outcomes. (You want my prediction? I don’t toy with fate by making public announcements of that nature.)
Henrik Zetterberg put the Wings ahead by a goal at 1:28. Nick Lidstrom, at the blueline, sent the puck toward the front of the net. Filppula, fortunately, missed the pass, and it went through to Zetterberg out front. Hank got Luongo to fall and then roofed it. 2-1 Wings.
Their lead was short-lived, however, as the Canucks stormed right back to score 30 seconds later. Bieksa was revenge for his failed opportunity earlier by sending the puck through a crowd and into the net from the blueline. It would have been an awful goal had it not been for the crowd. 2-2.
The Sedin brothers had a good scoring chance following the goal, with Daniel getting the shot after taking a pass from Henrik. Dom made the save, however.
Danny Markov took a bonehead holding-the-stick penalty at 4:20 and the Canucks made pretty good use of the opportunity, generating some pressure and scoring chances. The Wings finally got it out of the zone, however, and Dan Cleary slowed things down at center by circling back on a carry-out. He dumped the puck off the Johan Franzen, who took it down the right wing and then released a shot that somehow found its way between Luongo’s legs and into the net. I think it may have been redirected slightly by the Canucks defensemen covering Franzen, but even so, it was a terrible goal for Luongo. And so many Wings fans wanted him this summer! 3-2 Wings.
Pavel Datsyuk took a penalty when he tried to make up for a Franzen mistake at 7:01. Franzen had coughed up the puck, which resulted in a potential Vancouver scoring chance. Datsyuk had to hook Morrison in order to prevent it. The Wings killed it off pretty easily, with Dan Cleary standing out as having a strong shift.
Vancouver put on some pressure following their power play and it resulted in the puck going into the net. The goal was immediately waived off, however, due to goaltender interference on Jan Bulis, who had skated behind Hasek in the paint. Bulis did make contact with Dom, though the latter embellished it enough to draw the penalty (to be fair, Dom was backing up and not expecting Bulis to be there so it’s not too shocking that he fell). Still, Bulis had no business in the crease behind a goalie during an active play so I feel zero remorse. Anyway, it didn’t matter because the Wings’ power play sucks. Easy kill for the ‘Nucks.
Demonstraing a certain amount of pointless classlessness, the Vancouver fans proceeded to boo Hasek for the rest of the game. At least they left Chelios alone.
With the Canucks putting up a good fight, the Wings stuck with merely keeping Luongo awake with the odd shot while focusing mainly on defending against Vancouver pushes as the period wound down. It was mostly up and down, continuous play until 16:07 when the Canucks took a bench minor penalty to put the Wings back on the power play. This time, it wasn’t so bad, but they still couldn’t get it in the net.
With 1:15 or so left, Luongo was pulled, which meant decent pressure by the Canucks. It was alleviated by a clear and subsequent efforts at the empty net by the Wings. The Canucks got the puck back and carried it in offsides with 13.1 seconds left. They called a time out but couldn’t do anything with the time remaining. Wings win, 3-2.
… They announed last night that JLA will finally get an upgrade to its video board. They’re replacing the 36 big TVs this week with four LED screens. No more squinting at a tiny dim display if you want to catch a replay. Will that be reason enough for lower-bowl fans to look up from their martinis and business plans? Probably not. … Dominik Hasek had his shutout streak ended at 181:17 tonight with the Sedin goal. … A2Y … HR Game Report … Shift Chart …. Play-by-Play … Boxscore … Highlights … Next up: @ Calgary on Friday at 9:00 ET.
