George Malik has a great breakdown of the latest development in the Grigorenko story over at Snapshots. Be sure to check it out. My interest in this kid is rapidly approaching zero.
Archive for October, 2007
The Grigorenko drama continues
GameDay: vs. San Jose (5-3-1, 11 Pts) 7:30 ET
Update (11:05 AM): Dave of Gorilla Crouch has a nice analysis of the Draper deal here. - Matt
Tonight is the second of four meetings between these two teams this season. The Wings won the first, 4-2 last Thursday in San Jose. The remaining games will take place in January and February.
The Sharks have won both their games since losing to the Wings on the 18th. The first win came two nights later as they hosted and shut out the Predators 3-0. Two days after that, they took care of the Flames in Calgary, 4-1 to kick off a four-game road trip. After tonight, they’ll head to Columbus to play tomorrow night before facing Dallas on Monday.
Joe Thornton still leads the team in points, with an increase of three over the seven he had last time we saw him. Milan Michalek has taken the team lead in goals with six.
Our two favorite Sharks, Mike Grier (groin) and Kyle McLaren (chest) are listed as questionable.
Evgeni Nabokov should be in net tonight and will no doubt be looking to have a better outing this time around.
The Wings have also gone 2-0 since the October 18th game, winning first in Phoenix, 5-2 on the 20th, and then at home against the Canucks, 3-2 Wednesday night. After tonight, the team will fly out to Vancouver to face the Canucks again before stops in Edmonton and Calgary next week.
Henrik Zetterberg leads the team in points and goals with 18 and 7, respectively. That’s five more points than he had going into the game in San Jose.
Kris Draper signed a three-year contract extension yesterday. According to Bruce MacLeod, he’ll get $1.583 million a year. Can’t argue with that move. Drapes remains a highly valuable player to the team, both for his play and for his off-ice leadership. Good to know he’ll be around at least three more years.
Dallas Drake (cheek) and Johan Franzen (knee) remain the Wings only two skater injuries. Matt Ellis and Aaron Downey will continue to fill in there.
Dominik Hasek (hip) is day-to-day and will sit out tonight. Chris Osgood will get the start. Jimmy Howard will back him up.
The Wings need to pick up where they left off last week and play a strong game again tonight. The Sharks haven’t forgotten the playoffs and were embarrassed by the loss on the 18th. They’ll come out hard tonight and if the Wings do as well, expect a good game.
Sidenote: Having priced himself out of the NHL, Danny Markov has signed with Moscow Dynamo of the Russian Super League. Good luck, Danny.
Hasek injured, Howard re-called
According to Bruce MacLeod, Dominik Hasek is day-to-day with a hip injury. Chris Osgood will start Friday against the Sharks, and Jimmy Howard has been called up from Grand Rapids to back him up. Hasek looked fine to the buzzer last night, so I’m not sure what happened. The team has been extra careful with minor injuries to Dom in the past, so it would be an overreaction to hit the panic button. When he’s out for more than a couple games, we’ll see.
Wings 3, Canucks 2
Update (8:01): Justin left a great comment below, one I thought deserved more exposure:
I finally got to watch a whole Red Wings game, so I’ll provide a few comments:
The Red Wings didn’t play their best game, but against a weak Vancouver offense, it was still good enough to win. This stat sums up the performance by either side nicely:
The Datsyuk-Zetterberg-Holmstrom line managed 16 shots on Luongo.
The Canucks team as a whole managed 15 shots on Hasek.Luongo was the sole reason the Red Wings didn’t score 2 or 3 more goals. He made quite a few brilliant saves, the best one being a right kick save on a Dan Cleary tip early in the game.
At the other end, Hasek was OK. Granted he didn’t face a lot of shots and wasn’t really able to “get in the zone”. He couldn’t be blamed for the first goal, as Cooke’s shot deflected up off Draper’s stick. The second goal by Daniel Sedin was a bit weak; Hasek should’ve been able to make the save.
There was some controversy on whether Ellis’s goal should’ve counted, but 1) Luongo was out of the crease, and 2) a Vancouver player was responsible for Roberto getting bumped into anyway. Valid goal, and nice to see hard working Matt Ellis get his second career goal. Both of his goals have been scored with a backhand and him facing away from the net. Maybe he should try that more often?
Early on, Datsyuk tended to hang onto the puck too much and not shoot when he should have. But he got better as the game progressed and started taking a lot of shots. IIRC he ended up with 7 SOG to lead the team. But more importantly, he drew some penalties and was a big part of the game winning goal by Holmstrom. He was behind the net with the puck and drew two defensemen to him, leaving only one Vancouver player to watch both Zetterberg and Holmstrom. Dats got the puck over to Hank who was on one side of the net, Hank made an easy pass over to a wide open Homer on the other side, and Homer slammed the puck into the yawning cage for possibly the easiest goal of his career. The play was beautiful and made the Vancouver defense look like a bunch of amateurs.
Zetterberg was great on the penalty kill. The one powerplay goal Vancouver scored went in when Hank was in the box. Overall, I think the Wings actually had more scoring chances during Vancouver powerplays than the Canucks themselves.
Holmstrom was called for a BS goalie interference penalty early in the game. Yes Tomas bumped into Luongo, but Mattias Ohlund very clearly pushed Holmstrom into Luongo and prevented Holmstrom from being able to get away from the crease. How that can be called a penalty is beyond me. Holmstrom would later get revenge though, scoring two goals with one being the GWG.
Late in the game, Maltby turned some Vancouver scrub inside out then shot the puck into Luongo’s chest. For a second it looked like #18 and #13 had switched jerseys.
Hudler only got about 5 minutes of ice time, and it seems like Ellis has replaced him on the second line. Meanwhile, Filppula remains snake bitten. With the Vancouver net empty at the end of the game, Filppula brought the puck into the Vancouver zone but couldn’t maintain control of the puck to get a shot off. He can’t score even with the net empty…
That’s about all I remember to comment on. Hope this helped.
A very good take on the game, that’s for sure. - Matt
Sorry, no game recap today (unless work is very slow tonight). Dave has a great one over at Gorilla Crouch you should check out, though. And an advanced warning: I may not have one for the Sharks game Friday, either. Just too busy on this end…
GameDay: vs. Vancouver (4-5-0, 8 Pts) 7:30 ET
Big test today so this will be short:
This is the first of four games between these two teams this season. The Canucks won the series last year, 3-1. They play once more this month before wrapping things up in January and February.
The Canucks have lost three of their last four, including their most recent game, a 3-1 decision in Carolina on Monday. Their last win the game before, in Columbus, 4-1. Tonight is the second-to-last game in a four-stop road trip for the Canucks, who will fly to Washington to face the Capitals on Friday.
Daniel Sedin leads the team in assists and points with 6 and 9 respectively. Brendan Morrison leads in goals with 4.
Roberto Luongo will be in net tonight for the Canucks.
The Wings have won three out of their last four, including their two most recent, both of which came on the road, first in San Jose, then in Phoenix. Their last loss came in Anaheim last on the 15th. Tonight’s game is one of two homegames the Wings have before they embark on their second long road trip of the month next week.
The Wings will be without Dallas Drake (cheekbone) and Johan Franzen (knee). It’s unlikely that Igor Grigorenko will dress tonight, as he has had little time to impress the team enough to insert him over guys like Matt Ellis or Aaron Downey.
Dominik Hasek will be in net tonight.
The Wings made a good showing on their road trip and they need to translate that into success at home. Tonight’s a good place to start.
10/23 Grigorenko Update
Update (7:25 PM): … Bob Roose’s article on the Wings’ official site has a great Mike Babcock quote about how Grigorenko will have to earn a spot:
“If someone has a bad game and someone is working their butt off, they’re the first one in – absolutely. Ellis has gone from a guy who played very little to not dressing to playing to playing well to having three or four points and being a plus-four. It’s called a work ethic.”
This is the time for Grigorenko to show that he has the the necessary work ethic. He certainly has the talent, but that’s not all that matters. - Matt
… Bruce MacLeod reports that Igor Grigorenko participated in drills with the fourth line in today’s practice. However, because the majority of practice was spent working on the power play, Igor did not see a lot of ice. It doesn’t look like he’ll play this week after all, because he’ll need time to prove he’s one of the 20 best players with the team, that he’s a “winner.”
… George Malik has a take on Grigorenko from Ken Holland, in he states the obvious: like every Red Wing, he is going to be evaluated on a day-to-day basis. Because of that, Malik says, it’s “premature” to speculate where Grigorenko will end up two weeks from now. Whatever demands Grigorenko appears to be making, the Wings are not just going along, at least according to Holland’s reaction to the accusation.
… Ken Holland told Helene St. James that this is Igor’s last shot, as he does not “anticipate … heading down this path a year from now.” I’m not going to be too heartbroken if Grigorenko blows his last chance at playing in the NHL. If he burns bridges with the Wings, who will, barring a transfer agreement between Russia and the NHL, remain the only team that will have his rights from now until he retires, he’ll be stuck in Europe.
Aaron Downey’s value
Dave at Gorilla Crouch has a great post on the Igor Grigorenko situation up. In it, he makes a good case for keeping Aaron Downey on the roster over Grigorenko: Downey’s presence will help deter goons like Jordin Tootoo from taking a cheapshot on one of the team’s stars.
As for Igor himself, Dave believes his days as a Red Wing are nearing an end and I can’t disagree. It’s going to take a major turnaround in that kid’s attitude for the team to keep him around beyond Franzen’s return.