The Wings lost to the Blackhawks for the third time this season and deservedly so. With the exception of brief periods of play in the beginning and toward the end, they were outclassed by Chicago and looked completely out of sync. The Hawks, on the other hand, earned the win with hard work and hustle, pretty much from the first puck drop to the final horn.
I don’t have a lot more to say about this one, but here’s what I’ve got:
… Tomas Kopecky had a decent night. He had a nice assist on Hudler’s goal and just after that, put on a good show in a fight with Patrick Sharp. Although Sharp took Kopecky to the ice, I’d say the Blackhawk lost the fight, as he was cut badly by one of Kopey’s upper cuts.
… Hudler was one of the few Wings that looked sharp. He finished with a goal and an assist.
… Henrik Zetterberg extended his point streak to 17 games with a secondary assist on Hudler’s goal. He didn’t stand out too much.
… Chris Osgood’s unbeaten-in-regulation streak ended at 20 games. He didn’t look bad, though.
… Some real chintzy calls on both sides last night. It’s times like these that I really, really hate the new standards. It’d be nice if the officials could tell the difference between a hook that is consequential and one that’s not. Too many calls these days leave even long-time fans like myself mystified.
… I didn’t mention it for fear of jinxing things, but, like so many times in the past, the Wings had a chance to set a team record for consecutive wins with a tenth. I wonder if I’ll live to see them do it.
… I don’t like the idea of seeing the Wings face the Blues Tuesday if they’re going to come out like they did last night.
I’ll add that Lilja had a TERRIBLE game. And after last year’s playoffs, I was just getting excited about his play and reliability. On two of the goals scored, he didn’t have his stick… having a stick could have helped prevent both of them. And on one of the goals, it was his responsibility to clear the puck out of the zone and he didn’t… it just made it to the blue line and the Hawks kept the puck in… leading to Lilja losing his stick and thus, a goal.
I was impressed with Filpulla’s and Kopecky’s play last night… there was one play where Fil hashed it out behind the Hawks net for like 3 minutes with multiple guys trying to knock him off the puck, but he prevailed and came away with the puck and I think there may have been a scoring chance out of it.
I’ll agree on the officiating last night… way too many weak calls and some obvious missed ones. Let them play and get the calls right!! I feel like I’m saying this after every game now.
Oh well, one loss after such a great streak was bound to happen… it just scares me that we have lost so many games to the Hawks.
GO WINGS!!!!!!!!
Chicago was very good on the boards last night (again), and the wings spent an awful lot of time chasing. Anyone notice Datsyuk’s take aways were missing from this game. Hawks were very efficient at stopping the rush in center ice, and the wings are not used to so much center ice play. Why they didn’t change to a little dump and chase after failing to make the blueline 17 times is one of Babblecocks weak points. Wings are seeing crappy calls in 2/3 of the games and overcoming them. The failures I mentioned above had nothing to do with the Officiating.
With Lang gone, Lilja has become the scapegoat for all the GM wannabees who fail to notice all the things he does right. I like Lilja, and the inexperinced hockey fan never notices all the mistakes leading up to him looking bad.
FireBettman: You are out of line blaming Lilja for Chicago’s success. Two of those goals were on the PP, and the PK’ers failed miserably on the boards and attempts to clear the puck. The 4 differnt PK forward pairings, are all usually adept at stopping the rush at center ice, not last night
Matt: St Louis is scary, gotta agree. But not because of the Windy city effort, it is just that Andy Murray can outcoach Babcock anytime.
“Out of line”??? calm down. I didn’t blame Lilja for Chicago’s success… I just said that he made bad mistakes that helped lead to Chicago’s goals. If he would have cleared that puck like he should have on the one goal, Chicago wouldn’t have scored. He also seems to lose his stick quite often, which hurt him both times on those goals. I don’t know how you can overlook that… re-watch the game and you’ll see it plain and clear.
Overall though, the whole team is to blame… they definitely weren’t on their “A” game.
Firebettman,
I didn’t notice Lilja having a particularly bad game. Yes, he was caught without a stick a few times, but the fault for the goals rests on more than just his shoulders. I remember Zetterberg being in prime position to prevent the first goal and a couple people failed to clear on the other.
HockeyTownTodd,
Yes, I did notice Pavel’s lack of takeaways, every time he went in to strip the puck but failed. It was definitely unusual.
The Wings generally are awful at dump-and-chase. There’s something about that whole “chase” part that is too much. They would have had even more trouble than usual with that style given the Hawks’ hustle.
The Wings’ passing was off the whole night and, when you play a possession style game, bad passing screws things up. A lot of it had to do with the Hawks standing up on the blueline, but everyone from Lidstrom on down was making bad passes 2/3 of the time.