I said yesterday that I’d be surprised if the Hawks gave the Wings much trouble. Well, color me surprised. In my estimation, Chicago outplayed the Wings by a fair margin last night. That’s not to say the Wings played terribly, but it did seem as though they took the Hawks for granted somewhat, and as a result, they looked pretty average. In contrast, the Blackhawk skaters looked pretty good and if they can get more reliable goaltending from Khabibulin, the Central may be a bit more interesting this year. Still, in spite of the fact that they were outplayed, the Wings should have won, but we’ll get to that.

Aside from the fact that the Wings lost, the big story from the game is the injury to Johan Franzen not seven minutes into the second period. It was a bit of a freak accident at center ice, with Pavel Datsyuk tripping up Tuomo Ruutu, who fell into Franzen at about waist level. Franzen sprawled out, twisted his right knee and hyper-extended his left leg. It did not look pretty. He had to be helped off the ice by Piet Van Zant and Pavel Datsyuk, and went directly to the lockerroom. FSN announced at the start of the third period that he would not return. Bruce MacLeod quotes Franzen on his blog:

“I had almost the same kind of thing last year … (but) that was worse. It’s OK right now. It hurts a little bit right now, but I’ve got pain-killers.”

If you recall, Johan left knee was injured last year in a collision with Vancouver’s Willie Mitchell and he missed nine games as a result. Hopefully he’ll be back faster this time around. I think it’s safe to say he won’t play Monday, at least, so it looks like Matt Ellis will get some time this week.

And now, some thoughts on the game.

… Pretty early in the game, it was apparent that the Hawks had come out of the gates with more jump. For the first few minutes, they skated all over the Wings and it was only because Dominik Hasek was so sharp that they did not go up a goal or two. The Wings didn’t help their cause by taking an early penalty, but they weathered that storm and gradually began to gain their feet.

… Dallas Drake, who has probably had the fastest-to-fan-favorite time of any recent new acquisition, had his second fight in two games at 5:10 with James Wisniewsk. Drake won on a takedown. Both players kept their helmets on, but neither of them wear a visor. Drake isn’t the best fighter, but I like that he’s getting under the opposing team’s skin so well.

… With the teams skating four aside, Detroit took a 1-0 lead rather suddenly of a booming shot by Brian Rafalski. With the Wings having just entered the Hawks’ zone, Henrik Zetterberg dished the puck back to Nick Lidstrom the blueline. Nick passed it across to Rafalski, he stepped up, waited a second, and then released his shot, with Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Holmstrom out front. As near as I could tell, it went in clean. It was good to see Rafalski’s shot in action. It’s nowhere near as scary as Schneider’s, but it’ll do.

… Following the goal, the Hawks continued their territorial dominance until they took a penalty of their own. The Wings may have gained confidence from that power play because after that they started to pick up the pace a little. Valtteri Filppula and Kris Draper had a nice 2-on-1 break not long after the penalty kill, but Fil’s pass was too hard for Draper to take on his backhand and the play did not connect.

… Toward the end of the period, the Wings had a couple more good chances. The first came when Pavel Datsyuk stole the puck at the Detroit blueline and broke in on Khabibulin, who, unfortunately, made the save. Not long after that, Dallas Drake had a great chance in the slot, but, I believe, he shot the puck wide. The Hawks were somehow penalized on the play, but the Wings couldn’t convert before the end of the period.

… Just over a minute into the second period, Kris Draper took a dumb holding-the-stick penalty. It didn’t come back to bite the Wings, though, as 21 seconds later, Jason Williams was whistled for a very weak hooking penalty. With the teams skating four aside, it took the Wings 5 seconds to score again. Henrik Zetterberg won the faceoff (beating Robert Lang, by the way) to Mikael Samuelsson, who sent the puck back to Nicklas Lidstrom. Nick’s shot from the blueline beat Khabibulin high without any deflection or even much of a screen. Khabibulin was upset with himself on that one, but also apparently able to have a good laugh about it.

… The rest of the 4-on-4 stretch was pretty eventful, with Dominik Hasek making a big save following a Rafalski turnover and Pavel Datsyuk cycling the puck well with Johan Franzen in the other end. On the Wings’ brief power play, Homer had a great scoring chance out front, but Khabibulin was sharp and made the save.

… Franzen’s injury came at 6:58 or so, when the play was whistled dead for the penalty committed by Datsyuk that led to the injury. The subsequent Blackhawk power play was a good one, as they held the Wings in their zone for the majority of the time. The Wings did a good job of blocking and limiting shots, though, and they were able to kill it off.

… Following that penalty kill, Henrik Zetterberg, Jiri Hudler, and Mikael Samuelsson had a nice shift in the Chicago end, but the puck somehow ended up going the other way on a Blackhawk 3-on-2. Patrick Kane passed it to Magnus Johansson, who sort of shot/passed it at the net. Ruutu intercepted the shot (or took the pass, whichever you prefer), and put it behind Hasek, who had little chance. It was just a nicely set up play by the Hawks, whether the pass from Johansson to Ruutu was intentional or not. 2-1 at 9:43 of the second.

… At 10:50, the Hawks took a tripping penalty, and three seconds later, the Wings scored a power play goal to go up two again. Datsyuk won the offensive zone faceoff to Zetterberg, who sent it back to Rafalski at the blueline. Rafalski sent a slapper in the general direction of the net (it may have been going a little wide right) and Holmstrom got his stick on it for a perfect deflection between Khabibulin’s pads.

… Following the goal, the Hawks regained control of the play and I realized that, with a few exceptions, the Wings had not been so great 5-on-5 the whole night.

… The last few minutes of the period were pretty choppy and there isn’t much to report about them, except that the Hawks took another late penalty that carried over into the third.

… On the power play to start the final period, the Wings appeared to have scored a goal to make it 4-1. It came off a flurry around the net, one in which the puck fell to Khabibulin’s feet after he made a chest save. The puck then ended up to his left, where Pavel Datsyuk slammed it into the empty part of the net, a few tenths of a second after the back ref blew the whistle. Apparently, this official had lost sight of the puck, despite the fact that it was at no time covered by Khabibulin, who never left his feet. A monumentally stupid thing for the ref to have done. 9 times out of 10, they blow the whistle long after the puck is covered, but not this time. I made the mistake of commenting at the time that, “It won’t matter … hopefully.”

… At 2:22, Kane took a penalty and the Wings returned to the power play. This one was pretty sloppy and before long, the Hawks had a 3-on-1 break going the other way. Brian Rafalski was the only Wing back, with Lidstrom skating hard to provide support. Wisniewski had an easy tip-in goal from the left wing as he was uncovered by Rafalski, who had the other two Hawks on his mind. Hasek could only hope the puck would hit him. The play came out of a bad pass in the Hawks zone, which led to a Lidstrom turnover. 3-2 at 3:41.

… The pace picked up after that. The Wings sort of huddled in a defensive-esque mode while the Hawks mostly controlled the play. Detroit remained dangerous, earning a couple chances to put the game away, but failing to do so. The officials were letting both teams play at this point, as there were a number of things that could have been called that weren’t, on both sides.

… Robert Lang, unfortunately, tied the game up at 16:20. It was a nice goal for Robert, who put it right over Hasek’s left elbow, a place where a save is nearly impossible to make. That called-back goal was looking pretty important at this point.

… The last few minutes of regulation were pretty frantic, with lots of action in both ends, but neither team scored and we headed to overtime.

… Early on in the extra five, the Wings had some nice pressure and a chance or two to win the game, but the Hawks eventually took over. We then entered a stretch where Chicago could have won the game any one of 5 or 6 times, but Dom pulled the Wings through. He stoned Duncan Keith first, then withstood a solid two minutes of sustained pressure. The tension culminated in a glorious scoring chance for Patrick Sharp, who forced Hasek to make a save to his left out front, and then picked up the puck and took it around the back of the net on a wraparound attempt. Watching the play live, it had a certain inevitability about it. But somehow, Dom got over, and made a diving save. The replay showed that Sharp’s shot wasn’t actually on net and would have headed out into the slot (it rolled off his stick), but it was still spectacular, almost too much so.

… In the shootout, none of the Wings got what would have counted as a shot on goal. Pavel Datsyuk’s fore- to backhand deke rang off the post, Henrik Zetterberg’s back- to fore-hand deke was deflected wide by Khabibulin’s poke-check, and Jiri Hudler’s straight-up shot went wide. Patrick Kane, the Hawks’ first shooter, deked Hasek forehand to backhand and put it just over Dom’s left pad. A pretty goal. Yanic Perrault streaked in, effectively faked a shot, and then released a shot Hasek stopped. Hudler had to score to keep things going, but it wasn’t his night to be hero, and the Wings lost, 4-3.

… We Wings fans can be upset about the waived-off goal (believe me, I am), but the fact is the Wings blew a two-goal lead. They should not have needed that goal. On the other hand, they were fortunate to have had that lead in the first place, as they had not played up to par for the majority of the game. They deserve credit for taking advantage of those opportunities to score, but if they had won, it would have been a stolen game. They’re going to have to do better than that in the future.

As for the Hawks, I’m thinking they aren’t going to be the pushovers they have been in recent years. The Wings certainly can’t take them for granted after this game.