The Detroit Red Wings took a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference Finals by defeating the Dallas Stars 4-1 at home last night.
I didn’t take notes and I’m a little short on time so this will be brief:
… I missed the first couple minutes of the game, but it looked like the Stars were in control early on. Things started to unravel for them as they got into penalty trouble before the game was four minutes old. After that, the Wings took over and held the high ground for most of the rest of the game.
… The roughing on Mark Fistric was pretty stupid. If anyone deserved a call there, it was Steve Ott. Fistric did very little, but I thought Ott went a little overboard in his encounter with Holmstrom.
… I thought Brian Rafalski had a strong night for the most part. He made absolutely the right decision on his goal, chosing to take advantage of the chaos following Lidstrom’s shot going off the post. Turco had no idea what was going on.
… Franzen continues to play like an MVP. His goal will get the press, but his play in the defensive end was exemplary. If he’d played like that all season, the Wings could have had three Selke finalists.
… Valtteri Filppula looked strong all night. He was particularly impressive in his strength on the puck, which led to a Stars penalty in one instance. He made no mistake about it when he found himself open in the middle just before his goal. Turco doesn’t deserve much criticism on that one. It was just a great shot.
… Turco, by the way, was not the stellar goalie we were led to believe he’d be. I have no doubt that we’ll see the better side of him this series, but he’d better bring it quick or the Stars will be in trouble.
… I thought Chris Osgood looked stellar. He made a few huge saves at various points in the game and definitely was the goalie his teammates need him to be.
… Of course, Osgood was helped by a tight team defense. The Wings were very good about regaining possession in their zone and closing off the Stars’ attack.
… I was surprised to see Kirk Maltby in the lineup. I didn’t notice him much, to be honest.
… Darren Helm was great last night. He took an elbow shot to the face from Turco, though. Not sure how the officials missed that one.
… Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk looked like themselves with seven shots each.
… If the Wings’ power play clicks like that all series, Dallas will be very hardpressed to win a game, let alone four. The Stars are going to have to cut down on the penalties, for sure.
… The Wings held the Stars down for a good half of the game and then let off the gas. That’s not going to work if Dallas gets its act together. They’re better off staying on the attack all night.
… You could see the Stars’ frustration late in the game. My guess is Game 2 will be a different animal as they come out looking to make up for their poor performance last night.
Links
Well played game by your guys. I thought some of the penalties were a bit suspicious (Fistric and Modano’s) and Holmstrom’s goal should have been called goalie interference. Lehtinen also missed a good 10 mins of the first getting stitched up after getting high-sticked, but no call was made. It may have even been by one of our guys, but the amazingly talented Versus announcers didn’t say anything about it. All of that being said, the Stars still didn’t play well enough to win.
I expect 1 of 2 things for the next game. Either the Stars come out with some desire to play well and we have an interesting 6-7 game sereies, or they play like they did last night and you guys win in 4 or 5.
This is completely random, but I’ve looked around online and can’t seem to find anything. What happened to Jiri Fischer? I don’t think he’s come back to play, but I was just wondering if anyone knew how he was doing.
Saler, I’m sure we will have to agree to disagree, but Turco was better than you give him credit for and you give Osgood too much credit. Turco had no chance on any of the goals scored on him, period. 2 deflections and the Rafalski goal was completely screened. The breakaway beats any goaltender in the game.
Osgood had help from his pipe on Ott and Ribeiro couldn’t quite get to the puck on what would have been an open net goal.
As for the Fistric penalty, that was unbelievable. Have you ever seen 1 guy go off for that in the playoffs on the penalty kill? I will answer for you. No, you haven’t. Ott might have been guilty, but he didn’t get called.
If Fistric was guilty of roughing, then Holmstrom was guilty of goaltender interference. I for one do not understand how the refs can make one by the books call and then not later.
The Wings won, but the game should have been closer. As you said, the Stars came back later in the game which is encouraging to the Stars. I agree with Amy in that if the Stars get beat in game 2 like game 1, this will be a short series.
Did the Av’s put on Dallas sweaters?
Wings dominated about 80% of that game,mostly because he Stars were flat out terrible. It shouldn’t have been any closer.
I disagree about Rafalski, though. Some of his passes were a little weak, and one ended up as a defensive zone giveaway. There was also the comical incident where he tried to stand up a Star (can’t remember who) at the blue line and just missed, giving up a clear path to the net.
Amy,
Jiri Fisher has a position with the Wings front office, I think in player development. (Don’t know his exact title.)
Thanks, Baroque. I had Googled him a couple times and I could never seem to find anything except videos of when it happened. It’s good to see that he’s still involved with the sport. You just have to hate when it happens to one of your guys.
Amy,
Found it! He is currently a director of player development with the Wings. Here are some articles about his skating in a charity game to raise money for defibrillators - understandably, he’s pretty passionate about the issue.
The pictures are a lot more cheerful that the videos of the incident, that’s for sure.
http://comment-blog.advance.net/cgi-bin/mte/mt-search.cgi?tag=Healthy%20Hope%20Foundation&blog_id=1557
(Hope the address is okay - I’m not the link-savviest person on the internet.)
Thanks so much! That stuff was great to read, and it’s good to hear that he’s doing well enough to be skating again.
It really is a testament to how amazing the medical staffs are for every team.
And the link worked great
Brandon B,
That’s an unbelievably biased post you made there. I like how you pointed out that Osgood got lucky when Ott hit the post, but not Lidstrom’s shot ringing off the iron right before Rafalski’s goal. And Ribeiro’s missed chance? Yeah, well what about Zetterberg’s and Kronwall’s 2-on-1 early in the game that dissipated because Kronwall couldn’t handle the pass?
And don’t tell me what I have or haven’t seen before either. Fistric threw a punch at Holmstrom as the linesmen stepped in to break things up. McCreary was right there watching and obviously decided to send a message - that he wasn’t going to tolerate that stuff. As for Holmstrom’s goal - he didn’t touch Turco. I would’ve had no problem with that goal being waved off, but there was no way it was a penalty. Speaking of missed penalties though, Ribeiro got away with quite a bit of holding. Not to mention Turco elbowing Helm in the face.
Finally, I wonder about your credibility when you make the statement, “The breakaway beats any goaltender in the game.” What an utterly ridiculous thing to say. Anyone who knows hockey knows that statistically, goalies have the edge in breakaways - they make the stop about 70% of the time.
Those flaws with your post aside, I do agree that Turco should get more credit. Those goals he allowed weren’t examples of poor goaltending. 2 deflections, 1 breakaway, and 1 screened shot. If anything, blame the defense.
If you find it encouraging, though, that the Stars “came back later in the game”, then you better hope the Red Wings play their 3rd and 4th lines the majority of the remaining games and stop playing offense. Because that’s the only reason the Stars “came back”.