Archive for January, 2007

Wings 1, Blues 2 (OT)

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The Wings’ loss streak continued last night as they lost 2-1 to St. Louis in overtime. It was their third loss in a row and, with Nashville’s 3-1 win over Chicago, put them 7 points back of the Central Division-leading Predators. It wasn’t terribly exciting, as both teams played a conservative, defensive game, which was hardly surprising as the Wings were without four regulars and the Blues were trying to maintain momentum.

As reported just before the puck drop last night, Dominik Hasek did not play last night, having contracted the flu. Chris Osgood played instead and looked strong. Both goals he allowed were more due to defensive lapses than anything he did wrong, though he could have, perhaps, controlled his rebounds a little better. All in all, he did his job and it was the offense that failed to do theirs.

In my opinion, the Wings’ best line last night was made up of the Grand Rapids call-ups, Josh Langfeld, Matt Ellis, and Matt Hussey. They only got 9:59, 9:22, and 9:32 in ice-time, respectively, but it seemed like they pinned the Blues in their own end on almost every one of their shifts together. Part of that may have been due to the fact that they were relative unknowns to St. Louis, having been called up either the day of the game or the day before, in Langfeld’s case. However, most of it, I think, was due to their own hard work. They cycled the puck very well along the boards and generated a few scoring chances, with each of them coming close once or twice. Ellis and Hussey are back in Grand Rapids, however, where they will play the Toronto Marlies tonight. They could return to Detroit on Sunday, however, if Lang and Draper are not ready to play.

As expected, Jiri Hudler, Valtteri Filppula and Jason Williams composed the second scoring line last night, but they didn’t do much to impress and mostly squandered their 14-15 minutes on the ice, including significant power play time. Apparently, Filppula has gotten the flu himself, but the other two don’t have much excuse. Hudler stood out at times offensively and showed good effort on the backcheck, but Babcock was looking for results on the scoresheet. I can’t say Williams was disappointing because he’s been useless enough for months now that my disappointment has worn off and I’ve come to accept that he is going to bungle every offensive chance and blow it at the blueline on every power play he’s “quarterbacking.”

Kirk Maltby, Johan Franzen, and Dan Cleary looked pretty good together last night, and two of them were the only Wings to make it to the scoring category on the boxscore. Cleary came as close to scoring last night as he has in weeks and Franzen was pretty much a beast on the puck along the boards, shedding Blues like they were nothing. He exhibited some nice offensive skill on his goal in the second period, splitting the defense by stepping around Dennis Wideman and, after losing the puck momentarily, taking it back when Jamie Rivers tipped it right to him. He, in turn, tipped it past Legace at 9:59 and tied the game at one.

As far as disappointment goes, the top line, Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, and Tomas Holmstrom, probably top the list, though that’s only because expectations are so high. They showed magic at times, but were otherwise underwhelming and couldn’t generate as much pressure as the Grand Rapids Line. Of course, in contrast to the GR guys, they’re one of the most scouted lines in hockey, so it shouldn’t be surprising when they get shut down at times. Holmstrom did “score” a goal in the first period, but review showed the puck was knocked down with a high stick and it was negated.

The two Blues goals happened like this

  1. Chris Chelios pinched on the play in the St. Louis zone and missed the puck. It ended up on Ryan Johnson’s stick and after a nice cross-ice outlet pass to Jamal Mayers, the Blues had a 2-on-2 rush with Brett Lebda covering Mayers and Pavel Datsyuk back covering Eric Brewer. Both did a decent job, and, though Mayers got off a good backhand shot in the slot, Osgood was able to make the save. With Datsyuk and Lebda sealed off by Mayers and Brewer, however, Johnson was able to follow up on the play and pounce on the rebound to Osgood’s left. He got to it and knocked it in before Henrik Zetterberg could make it back. 1-0 Blues at 8:03.
  2. In overtime, Doug Weight took the puck down the right wing on a quick rush, 2-on-2. He took a long backhand shot at the net and Osgood redirected the rebound to the right wing, where Bill Guerin happened to be streaking in. Johan Franzen was right there but he somehow didn’t see Guerin early enough and could only put his stick out in a vain effort to disrupt the one-timer, which blew past Osgood and won the game for St. Louis at 1:09 of the extra period.

… FSN showed a replay before the game of Mikael Samuelsson blocking a shot in the first period of the Colorado game. Apparently, that’s when the injury happened, so I was wrong to assume it happened in the third period. … Niklas Kronwall chose to wear the cage rather than a full plexiglass shield last night. He looked good and didn’t seem to be too much affected by it. … The refs really let both teams, but especially St. Louis, get away with murder last night. Then they’d call something that was completely harmless. I hate that. … Ken Daniels said that one of the reasons the Wings are planning on playing Hasek more is because they have a couple five-day breaks over the last months of the season. That may be true, but I still think it’s a mistake to play him more often, even with those extra days of rest. … Brett Lebda made a great defensive play in the second period when Jamal Mayers took the puck in on a scoring chance. Mayers got behind him, but Brett switched his stick over his head to his left side and was able to disrupt Mayers’ shot, which went wide. Mayers fell on the play, and the fans wanted a call, but Lebda never touched his feet. Lebda is very underrated, I have to say. … Speaking of the fans, they were very spirited last night, but seemed very classless. They taunted Osgood often and booed Manny Legace when he allowed the Franzen goal. They booed at least one icing call and were constantly calling out for calls on plays that clearly were not penalties. It’s one thing to support your team, it’s another to be so vocal with crap like that. …

Next up, the Wings have Colorado tomorrow afternoon on NBC. Hopefully the Wings’ll be more healthy and able to put up a better effort.

GameDay: @ St. Louis (19-21-8, 46 Pts) 8:00 PM

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Update (4:20 PM): Dominik Hasek will start tonight. - Matt Update (8:06 PM, just before the puck drop): Apparently, Dom has the flu, so Osgood will be the starter instead. - Matt

Update (5:45 PM): Ansar Khan has some thoughts worth reading on starting Dominik Hasek versus starting Chris Osgood down the stretch. I couldn’t agree more. The Wings have been smart so far, but playing Dom as much as they have been will be a mistake, especially given the fact that they have an entirely capable backup. I’m especially shocked to see that he’s been cleared to play back-to-back games. Why stray from the plan now? It makes no sense. Hasek is on this team to play and win in the playoffs, not win us the Central Division. If they somehow think playing Osgood means they won’t win the Division, so be it.

Khan also says Babcock is challenging Valtteri Filppula and Jiri Hudler to prove they’re ready for more minutes. Apparently, they haven’t been doing enough with the time they’ve been given, though I thought they’d been doing pretty darn well.

Apparently, our line projections earlier were a little off, as Khan says the three GR call-ups will be together tonight. So, does that make Williams-Filppula-Hudler the #2 scoring line? If Franzen, Cleary, and Maltby are together, I’d say it does. Tonight’s a great opportunity for the young guns. - Matt

Update (12:45 PM): Not that there was any doubt after the call-ups, but the Freep confirms that Lang and Draper are too sick to play and that they will be replaced in the lineup by Ellis and Hussey. - Matt

Update (9:38 AM): It looks like Kris Draper and Robert Lang will both sit out with the flu tonight as the Wings have called up Matt Ellis and Matt Hussey from Grand Rapids. To fill in for Ellis and Hussey in GR, Evan McGrath was called up from Toledo and Jamie Tardiff was given a professional tryout.

This’ll mean a bit of line shuffling for tonight. Megan and I project these lines:

Holmstrom-Datsyuk-Zetterberg
Hudler/Langfeld-Williams-Cleary
Franzen-Ellis-Maltby
Hudler/Langfeld-Filppula-Hussey

With Hudler playing as well as he has, he could very well move up to the second line, as Dave of Gorilla Crouch proposed yesterday. Ellis may center the checking line since he’s very good at faceoffs, but Franzen is also a likely choice. - Matt

Tonight is the fifth of eight games between these two clubs this season. The Wings lead the series 3-1, with wins October 28th (3-2), December 5th (5-1), and December 7th (4-3 OT). The Blues won the November 24th meeting, 3-2. They’ll play twice more next month before finishing up the 8-game series on March 24th in Detroit.

The last time we saw the Blues, they were in the midst of what would turn out to be a 0-8-3 losing streak and were falling as fast as they could. However, since December 19th, when they beat Pittsburgh 4-1 on the road, they’ve put up a 12-2-2 record, making them the hottest team in the League going into the All Star Break. If they can continue this and things go their way with the other teams, they’ll be able to think playoffs. They are currently just eight points behind Minnesota for eighth in the conference, but don’t have much room for error as the season hits the final stretch. Their upcoming schedule is tough and maintaining momentum will be very difficult.

One of the biggest reasons for the Blues’ recent success has been former Red Wing Manny Legace, who is 10-2-2 in his last 14 starts. He has posted an impressive .928 save-percentage in that span and earned three shutouts.

The Wings have not been quite as successful since December 19th, posting an 11-5-1 record in that span, with those losses coming in clumps of three and two. They are six points behind Nashville for the division lead with 65 and will need to have a fortunate finish if they want to catch the Predators by season’s end. An exhausted Detroit team dropped two games going into the All Star Break, first to Columbus and then to Colorado the next night. Only one player, Nick Lidstrom was in the Game so the team should be well-rested now and ready to go for the 33-game sprint to the post-season.

I assume Dominik Hasek will start tonight for the Wings, though the team did say a couple weeks ago that Chris Osgood would get the nod more often toward the end of the month.

Mikael Samuelsson is out with a broken/fractured right foot and will be replaced in the lineup by Josh Langfeld.

Mathieu Schneider remains out with a knee sprain.

Robert Lang and Kris Draper couldn’t practice because of the flu yesterday and if either one of them can’t go tonight, the Wings will call up someone from Grand Rapids.

It’ll be good to return to meaningful hockey now that the Break is over. After the rest, I expect the Wings to be back to form and to put up a good performance tonight. The Blues are playing well and can smell a shot at the post-season, but they’re still vulnerable and the Wings need to take advantage of it. Should be a high-tempo game with some good goaltending and hopefully Detroit’ll come out on top.

More from Devellano

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Looks like Jimmy Devellano has gotten a little dose of reality as far as the subject of a possible move to the East for the Wings is concerned.

In yesterday’s Free Press, the team senior VP was quoted by Helene St. James as saying,

“I can assure you if anybody from the Eastern Conference moves West, we’ll be the Western team to go East.”

In that same piece, St. James had a counter-quote from NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly that took the Wings’ argument and negated it by basically saying they’re too big a draw in the West to switch conferences.

Well, Devellano heard the comment from Daly and went from confident and brash to becoming the martyr spokesman of a persecuted team. He told the Windsor Star’s Dave Waddell,

“There’s no question we’re the victim of our popularity. That’s been the case for a number of years now.

“The reason is because we’ve produced excellent clubs year in and year out. We’re the team in the United States in my opinion.

“We’re needed by NBC and Versus and we’re needed to draw in other rinks in the Western Conference. It’s just a fact.”

Whatever truth there is in that (and there’s a lot, obviously), it sounds whiny and probably won’t help the team much in convincing other owners to let them move. I can see it now: “Come on guys, we make you more money than any other team in the West, but we hate the travel. So, uh, vote ‘yes’ and let us move to the East so you can have half-empty arenas every night rather than just the nights our boys aren’t in town.”

The Wings’ only hope is that the Western owners realize that the Pens are going to be an enormous draw themselves. Then again, they’d be more likely to respond, “Well, then we’ll keep both of you and give up Columbus.”

This gets into another aspect of this situation that Devellano touches on: the parochial selfishness of NHL governors. With regard to the failed vote on schedule format change, he had this to say:

“The resistance is mostly in the east because of travel advantages. New Jersey can go to most of their road games by bicycle after dinner.”

And the Wings are going on five-game road trips two time zones away.

To Devellano, the Wings are due to be repaid by the rest of the league, as he says they supported the cap system as a fix for the NHL’s financial troubles, knowing it’d hurt their ability to dominate the market.

“We don’t have a major problem with that, but at the same time nobody wants to make any sacrifices for us.”

Of course not, Jimmy. Not only did the team’s success create a dependence on the draw the Winged Wheel brings, it brought about feelings of jealousy and envy. There’s no way the other owners are going to go out of their way to help the Wings as long as they’re just good enough to cause Joe Fan to buy tickets.

(via Snapshots)

ESPN: Referee uniforms also changing

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If you watched the Game last night, you probably noticed that the refs’ orange armbands were replaced by silver. Well, according to ESPN, the change will become permanent next year in an effort to create continuity between the League’s new logo and the officials’ uniforms.

Personally, I think it’s a completely unnecessary change because I liked being able to locate the refs at a glance and orange stands out much better than the new silver. But no one asked me, obviously.

1/25 Injury Update

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Via Ansar Khan:

… Mikael Samuelsson’s right foot was broken Saturday night in Denver when he blocked a shot during the third period (I assume, based on the shift chart). It’s the first I’ve heard of it and apparently, the Wings themselves didn’t know until he had an X-ray taken today. The Wings will be without Mikael’s services for at least two weeks, Khan says, but have called up Josh Langfeld to fill in for now. It can’t be a very serious break if it took them this long to find out there was one and if the recovery time is so short.

… It looks like the inflammation and pain in Henrik Zetterberg’s wrist has subsided enough for him to forego another cortisone shot. The rest has done him a lot of good, apparently, and that’s great news for the Wings.

… Mathieu Schneider practiced today but will miss at least two more games. That puts his return at Tuesday night in Long Island, at the earliest. The Wings could use him back, but it won’t do them any good to rush it so I’m glad they’re taking their time.

… Neither Robert Lang nor Kris Draper practiced today due to the flu and Khan suggests that the Wings may call someone else up to cover for them in the game tomorrow night. I’ll keep an eye on the AHL transaction page in case they do.

… Lastly, as reported earlier this week, Niklas Kronwall will play tomorrow night, but will have a cage protecting his face, and could wear it as long as 2 months. He has a whopping 25 stiches in the cut across his nose from Marek Svatos’ skate and may want to consider wearing the visor a little lower once he drops the cage.

1/25 Notes

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… Drew Sharp’s bi-, tri-, or whatever-monthly piece on hockey is out today and this time he’s spouts off on how the Wings need to acquire Peter Forsberg and how they need to do it whatever cost. Sharp believes that even Forsberg at 60% on the third line would be the answer to the Wings’ playoff question (in my opinion, if he comes here and is on the third line, there’s a problem). What about Forsberg at 0%? With that ankle problem, the man might not even finish the season.

The Wings have taken a risk on Dominik Hasek, another player with health questions, and have been successful so far. However, it cost them very little to go with Hasek and his health issue is entirely preventable. With Forsberg, they’d have to give up a lot to acquire him only to inherit his chronic ankle problems and have to hope some kind of solution can be found, even though there probably isn’t one.

Forsberg is an incredible competitor and will play if he can, but what if he can’t? This isn’t about throwing around money, like it was with Hasek. It’d be about throwing around the team’s present and future, as someone from the current roster and someone in the system plus a draft pick would have to go.

Say he comes to Detroit and is able to play. Great, but in the end, Forsberg will be gone this summer, especially if he ends up having a great finale and postseason. The Wings wouldn’t be able to hold on to him, whether because he’d retire or because he’d sign elsewhere. Would it be worth it? If the Wings win the Cup, of course the answer is “yes,” but not otherwise.

… Some more thoughts on the new jerseys after seeing them during the All-Star Game:

Given that the league is serious about these things, they need to start thinking about implementing an equipment change as well. The shoulder pads, especially, are too big and make the players look like they’re suiting up for the Colts or Bears.

The jerseys are too tight around the forearm.

If the League was trying to elminate individualist uniform cues a la the No Fun League, they failed. Everyone looked neat and clean before the game, but within minutes of the puck dropping, the jerseys of certain players had somehow ridden up over their pants and straps were flapping in the wind.

Other than that, they looked fine, for the most part, though the East All Stars’ jerseys were painfully white.

1/24 Notes

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Update (10:05 AM): … John Niyo reports that the IIHF has proposed a new transfer agreement with the NHL that includes Russia, saying such an agreement would help the Wings’ efforts to sign Igor Grigorenko. That’s true, but, even if the NHL and IIHF don’t get a new deal, I’m not too worried about the Wings’ chances of signing Igor if they really want to. They do have some experience in nabbing Russian players, after all. - Matt

… Helene St. James looks today at the possibility of the Wings switching to the Eastern Conference if Pittsburgh ends up moving to a Western city. According to senior VP Jimmy Devellano, “if anybody from the Eastern Conference moves West, we’ll be the Western team to go East.”

Devellano sounds pretty confident there, but it doesn’t look like it’d be that cut and dry, as St. James found out from NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly:

“Detroit would clearly have a strong case, but by the same token, there are other teams in the Western Conference that kind of depend on Detroit being in the Western Conference, so … there’s always balancing involved that would involve a lot of debate, I’m sure, with respect to what you do with the realignment. But hopefully we never get there. At least at this point.”

So the Wings could continue to be screwed just so teams like Phoenix can charge double when they come to town? Nice.

Of course, we won’t know for sure until the Pens’ mess is figured out, which apparently will come soon, according to Bettman, who supplied St. James with this gem: “It’s urgent, but it’s not imminently urgent. It will be shortly.”

If the Pens do move and the League does allow the Wings to move East (rather than, say, Columbus), they’ll be ready. They’ve been wanting it for years. And you know the governors will be interested in a schedule format change if Sidney and Company move to the West. Those Eastern owners that were so selfish this time around will change their stance real quick in that case.

… David Waddell of the Windsor Star looks at what the Wings will try to get at the trade deadline: a forward. Ken Holland feels the team has plenty of depth on defense, with three players in the AHL that are NHL-capable, but they are not quite so strong up front because of youth and inexperience in the minors.

Waddell says they’d like a top-six forward and mentions the team has an interest in Peter Forsberg, should he become available. Holland, though, isn’t hung up on Foppa and believes the market will have some other big names worth pursuit.

He has $2 million to play with and by the time the deadline rolls around, 3/4 of any player’s salary will already have been paid, so they can go after a $7-8 million guy, as Waddell points out.

It will be very interesting to see what move Kenny tries and how it works out with team chemistry, which is very good at the moment. (via Snapshots)