On the Wings

The Wings picked up where they left off Thursday with another strong win yesterday at the Joe. They took a 2-0 lead over Calgary in the series with the win and head into Calgary with all of the momentum. It wasn’t quite as dominant as Game 1, as the Flames actually showed up to play for some of the game, but the Wings had already jumped out to a two-goal lead by then.

It was definitely a confidence builder, as I was pretty nervous before the game. Which Red Wings would we get? The dominant, physical Wings of Game 1, or the lethargic, dead Wings of regular season afternoon games? We obviously got the former. Of course, as Paul Kukla put it so well yesterday, “it isn’t a series until a road team wins.” After seeing how well the Wings have played compared to how badly the Flames have, it’s easy to predict a sweep. I’m sticking by my original prediction, though.

I’m not going to do a full, blow-by-blow recap this time. I don’t have the time today, unfortunately.

The first period was a disaster for the Flames. It didn’t start out all that badly, as they got the puck in the Detroit end right off the bat. The Wings took it the other way, however, and that’s when things begain to turn south for Calgary. Pavel Datsyuk picked Alex Tanguay’s pocket along the right wing boards, wheeled out to the middle of the ice, and released a high rocket snap shot. It beat Kiprusoff high over his right shoulder and surprised the heck out of everyone. No deflection, no screen. Just a great shot. 1-0 Wings at 1:02.

After that, the Flames came unraveled. About a minute after Pavel’s goal, the Flames took their first of five penalties in a span of six minutes. The Wings were basically on the power play from 2:15 until 10:13. They managed to score a goal while on a two-man advantage and otherwise had the Flames running around in the zone for all that time. The goal came seconds after a beautiful keep-in by Mathieu Schneider on a Calgary clearing attempt. He got it across to Lidstrom and Nick’s blast beat Kiprusoff high at 3:50. During this stretch, Miikka Kiprusoff was the only thing keeping the Flames in the game.

Later in the period, the Flames settled down and got somewhat more on track. The Wings ran into some slight penalty trouble of their own and Calgary was able to get some offense going and gain confidence. That confidence continued in the second period, when the teams were much more evenly matched. The Flames had the Wings on their heels at times throughout the second, particularly after they scored their goal at 2:42. They were on the power play when Dion Phaneuf took a shot that deflected in off Chris Chelios. Hasek looked like he had the initial shot, but after the deflection, he was helpless. Throughout the rest of the period, I’d say that the Flames generated more pressure than the Wings, but the defense went into overdrive and held them to just three shots.

To start the third, the Wings’ offense was a bit sloppy as they seemed to have trouble connecting on passes. Still, it didn’t take them that long to score again, as a nice rush by Johan Franzen led to a goal by Valtteri Filppula off the rebound from Johan’s shot at 6:05. Again, Kiprusoff was beaten high. I’m noticing a trend. I’m also noticing that Filppula has scored twice in two games. Is he going to be one of those Wings who really shows up in the playoffs? The Wings were more assertive after that. The game wound down with the Flames getting into penalty trouble again. At the final whistle, the teams were skating four a side.

The Wings put out a good effort yesterday, but they were aided by Calgary’s apparent inability to keep their heads. It also helped that Robyn Regehr went down with a recurrence of his knee injury in the second period after a collision with Kris Draper. Kiprusoff was impressive as always, but even he couldn’t win the game with so little support. The guy had to face 51 shots, while his teammates only managed to get 15 on Dominik Hasek. That’s a major discrepency, especially given the quality of the majority of the Wings’ shots.

I have to say that the Flames have surprised me during this series. I’ve had confidence in the Wings that they would win, but I never expected them to have it so easy. I understand that they’ve only won two games, but the Flames have not shown yet that they are able to stem the hemorrhaging. We all said they’d come out hard in Game 2 and yet they didn’t, despite the psychological importance of a win there. Now, to be safe, I’ll go along with everyone and say they’ll be a new team in Game 3. But will they?

Officially I’m standing by my “Wings in 5″ prediction, but were I to make a new prediction, I’d say “sweep.” I still suspect they’ll win a game in Calgary, but I have nothing on which to base that suspicion, because they’ve not shown they’re capable of even that. These teams were supposed to be pretty evenly matched, but thus far, the Wings have been walking all over them. I’m not complaining, I’m just surprised.

Maybe they should fire Playfair, as some are suggesting. I’d rather they didn’t, though. This is too much fun.

As for the Wings, they’ve shown a desire and a drive that I haven’t seen from them in years. I admit that I sort of doubted they could repeat their Game 1 performance, but they did, aside from the fact that they weren’t quite as physical. I’m with Kukla in saying that the jury is still out until they win on the road, but my confidence is growing. I can’t wait to see what they do in Game 3.

One slightly disturbing thing about the game: while Pavel Datsyuk looked great again, Henrik Zetterberg was relatively quiet offensively. He didn’t seem to have the same jump he had in Game 1 and a lot of his offensive chances just fizzled out. Hopefully it’s just that he’s still getting up to speed and not that his back is bothering him that much. He was second on the team with 7 shots so hopefully he’s going to break back onto the scoresheet soon.

Also, Robert Lang has been utterly useless thus far this series. I’d love to see him benched in favor of Todd Bertuzzi, but I can’t see the Wings doing that. It’s a real shame that a hard working, productive player like Jiri Hudler is going to be scratched instead. I can’t wait until Lang’s gone this summer. He absolutely does not fit on this team.