On the Wings

Not much to say about this one. Despite the fact that they hung in and kept it a game, the Wings didn’t deserve to win this one anyway. It was one of their weaker defensive performances of the season, to be sure, and was all the more disappointing in that it came against the imposters from “Farber’s Hockeytown.” Fortunately, the Wings will have the chance to cleanse themselves of this on February 5th.

A few thoughts:

… I’m not sure what happened to the team defense last night, but the Wild had 28 shots  and though it’s an exaggeration to say that 20 of them were excellent scoring chances, that’s how it seemed. The Wings had little or no presence in front or behind their own net, as the Wild were setting up plays from Wayne Gretzky’s Office™ all night. It got so bad that frickin’ Todd Fedoruk scored from the slot on the setup from Matt Foy.

… Marian Gaborik showed over and over again last night why he’ll be on All Star teams for years to come (as long as he stays healthy). He’s an electrifying player and when he had the puck on his stick in the Wings’ zone, I was sure something was going to happen.

… Chris Osgood didn’t have much of any chance on the Wild’s goals, but it was still unusual to see him get shelled like that. I don’t think he’ll pull a Miikka Kiprusoff and start tanking now that he’s signed an extension, but last night wasn’t exactly an auspicious beginning to the last stage of his career.

… Seeing the Wings tie it up a little over a minute after the Wild went up 1-0 was encouraging. I’d love to see Brett Lebda make more passes like that.

… Valtteri Filppula scored one of the best goals of the year to bring the Wings within one late in the second. He may have fanned on his initial shot, but his individual effort leading up to that point and the goal scored on the second try ought to have the play on the end-of-the-year highlight reels.

And didn’t I say he’d break out of his slump spectacularly?

… Dallas Drake’s goal? Talk about coming out of nowhere!

…  After Niklas Kronwall’s goal made it 4-4, I was skeptical of Jacque Lemaire’s decision to pull Nicklas Backstrom. After seeing Josh Harding’s performance in a relief role, I understand. That kid has to have the Fastest Glove in the West. And the Wings kept shooting at it, which was maddening.

… Dan Cleary’s go-ahead goal at 18:52 was quite awesome. The relief was short-lived, however, as Eric Belanger scored at 19:11 to tie things up. Just after Ken Daniels said, “And we’re headed to overtime,” the Wild took a long shot on Osgood and I thought, “… he scores!”  because it seemed like that kind of night. Fortunately or unfortunately, it didn’t happen and we had to sit through a tense overtime period.

… The shootout was frustrating. Datsyuk tried a glove-side deke and failed. Demitra sent the puck off the side of the net, but probably had Osgood beat. Zetterberg  tried that idiotic Forsbergian deke (one of his his two shootout moves) and Harding was with him the whole way. Complete failure, Hank. Rolson’s blast startled Osgood. Hudler proved the only Red Wing with a shot faster than Harding’s glove as his snapper ripped through to set up the final showdown with Gaborik. Osgood didn’t really have a chance.

… Congratulations to the Wild for the win. Just don’t let it go to your heads.

… Let’s all hope the Wings’ performance in this game was a one-time thing because they’ll get lit up on Saturday if it wasn’t. If you don’t already know, they’re traveling to Ottawa for a showdown with the #2 Senators. It would be a very bad time to hit a slump.

Links

• Highlights
• Boxscore
• Post-game interviews
  • Mike Babcock
  • Niklas Kronwall
  • Chris Osgood
• Kent Youngblood