On the Wings

Update (1:42 PM): Also be sure to check out George Malik’s post-game comments here. His wrap-up is here.  - Matt

Update (1:10 PM): Bill’s post-mortem at Abel to Yzerman is well worth your time. - Matt

I don’t know about you, but I got cocky last night when the Wings were up 5-2 in the third. I loved that the Wings were ahead and looked poised to reemphasize their dominance over the Pens. When Evgeni Malkin scored, my smile faded a little, and when Jordan Staal kicked off this third period hattrick, it faded even more. Jiri Hudler’s goal, however, had me smiling again. Then Jordan Staal scored two more times and forced overtime with 23 seconds left. My outlook on the game changed completely as a result. I knew what was going to happen. 

The always-astute Bruce MacLeod notes that last night’s was “[s]]uch an unusual game that you have to forget about it,” citing the blown third-period lead, Pavel Datsyuk’s getting schooled by Jordan Staal (more on that to come), and Nick Lidstrom’s losing the puck in his feet as reasons to let it go. A good point, except that these things are more common this season than they have been since maybe 1999. So it’s not a simple matter of letting it go. This team simply hasn’t got it together yet and the one reason it’s only mildy alarming is that it’s still just November.

On the other hand, if only it were a simple matter of just forgetting this happened and moving on. You know that Pittsburgh fans and the hockey media at large won’t let that happen, and maybe that’s the real loss to come out of this game. Still, Wings fans, we have the Cup, which is why I titled this post as I did. A November loss means nothing in light of that.

And now for a random assortment of thoughts on the game:

… Jiri Hudler had one of his best games in the Winged Wheel, I thought. His assists on the Johan Franzen and Henrik Zetterberg goals were perfect, and his goal was a classic example of powering a shot through a goalie. 

… As pointed out by Bruce MacLeod, Pavel Datsyuk did not have his best game. One obvious exception was his schooling of Sidney Crosby just prior to his second period goal. It looked to me like Crosby didn’t know which way to turn and second later, Datsyuk was calling for the puck and sending a rocket inside the post. 

As shocking as it was to see Datsyuk stripped of the puck in overtime by Jordan Staal, it was even more shocking to see no call on the play. After Staal had the puck, he tripped Datsyuk as he turned around. It doesn’t matter if it was accidental or not, that play is called all the time. Just not last night. No comment as to why not, but you know. 

… Bruce MacLeod has an interesting section on Henrik Zetterberg in this post. I still think it would be a good idea if Babcock threw Hossa on a line with Zetterberg at some point. 

… Speaking of Hossa, he was slightly disappointing last night. Is it just me or did it seem like the Pens were in his head somewhat?

… Johan Franzen is an angry, angry man. And I love what that means for his play. He looked good in his first game back, I thought. 

… Call be a biased, whiny Wings fan all you want, but if the officials are going to call Brian Rafalski for not getting out of the way when Jordan Staal decides to cut across his body, they should call the Pens for tripping Henrik Zetterberg in the slot in overtime. 

… Al in all, a good game for the average hockey fan, but definitely a disappointing one for this Red Wings zealot. Give me a relatively drama-less regulation Detroit win over an “exciting” overtime loss any day, obviously.

Good thing there’s a rematch February 8th in Pittsburgh.