According the the AP, as reported by Malik, Datsyuk will probably sit for game three. This is getting very frustrating for us Wings fans. If he does indeed sit, I think it’s getting pretty safe to say he’s not gonna be back in this series.
Posts by Megan Saler
Datsyuk Likely Out
Oh Joel, We’ve Been Through So Much
It’s true, we have a lot of history with Joel Quenneville. Though we love it, I have a feeling he does not share in our sentimentality. Quenneville has made the playoffs ten times in his coaching career. Four of those times, it was ended by Detroit. 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008. Plus, he spent years in St. Louis, where he became very familiar with the play of Detroit. And apparently, it pissed him off. Want evidence? I’ve got it.
Do you remember a special day in 2003? March 29. The game was played in St. Louis. Legace was in net for the Wings, and Ozzie was in for St. Louis. Most of the stats favored the Blues. Faceoffs were even. They outshot Detroit 24-21. It was just that one stat. You know, the one that matters. Goals. 6-2 Detroit.
And Joel was mad that night. It was the fifth and final game between the two teams of the season, and the Blues had gone 0-3-1. So he sent his players out with a message: Kill them. All of them. Some of their guys don’t fight, you say? I don’t care. In fact, target them. That guy, Holmstrom? He’s been pissing me off. Kill him. Six times if you can.
There’s a wonderful video of it on youtube.
The result? Well, the Wings won, 6-2. ESPN provides the stats. And some from my own memory. St. Louis ended up with 139 penalty minutes, 113 in the last minute. The Wings were given 112 penalty minutes, 76 in the last minute. Wings assistant coach Joey Kocur threw a chair on the ice and basically challenged Joel to go with him. He was suspended. If my memory serves correctly, the Blues had 7 guys left on the bench to finish the game. The Wings had 9. Luc Robitaille fought. Mathieu Schneider fought. Dmitri Bykov (remember him?) fought…sorta. He had to keep his head down because he had an eye injury, so it wasn’t much of a fight.
I don’t remember all the games against Quenneville (who does?), but this one has always stuck out in my memory. I remember watching the game and thinking I should be mad about it. But I was laughing. Can you blame me? It was funny to see a team of grown men throwing a collective tantrum.
Now we face our friend Joel again. He’s not with St. Louis, or even Colorado, anymore. He’s in Chicago, there to lead them to a Cup. Remember last season? Chicago embarrassed us. This year, with Joel? 4-2 for Detroit. I’m not saying it’s Joel’s fault. I’m not even saying the Wings will win the series just because Joel is the coach.
We’ve had his number in the past, and he doesn’t like us very much. That’s all I’m saying.
Respect for Aaron Downey = Zero
I know, it’s shocking to see on a Red Wings blog. I used to like the guy. I thought he was a good energy player, great for the locker room, and an all-around good guy. I liked having him on the Griffins because he brought leadership and a toughness that they lacked. He also brought a lot of experience.
All of that died tonight. Downey made a dangerous, stupid hit on a defenseless Moose player. He got called for it. He was very unhappy about getting called, so he skated passed another Moose player and two-handed him right in the gut. It was disgusting. I am not a fan of that type of play and don’t want it anywhere near either of my teams. He belongs on a team like Calgary, apparently. This was after a game in which he reportedly elbowed the opposing goaltender in the head, for which he should have been automatically suspended. Downey got two minutes for the dirty hit, and a ten minute misconduct. I wish they had suspended him, because then at least the Griffins could have dressed another player. With Downey in the box for ten minutes, they had only 17 skaters, and they are not that deep. Downey did nothing but hurt them tonight. I’m glad he got both the penalty and the misconduct. That sort of thing has no place in hockey, no matter who is doing it.
Griffins Advance to Second Round
Apparently, the Griffins prefer to save their best games for the road. They won games 1 and 2 on the road in Hamilton, by scores of 4-3 and 3-1. They came home to Van Andel Arena with an unexpected two games to nothing lead, and we hoped they would finish it off at home. In their first game of these playoffs at home, the Griffins let in 5 goals, losing 5-4. They followed that up on Wednesday with a disappointing 4-3 loss in OT, having lost a 3-0 lead in the last ten minutes of the game. This was apparent inspiration for the Griffs, who came back big on Friday night. They won 4-1 after dominating almost the entire game and allowing only three shots in the third period. For the first time this season at home, they played a full sixty minutes.
Game five gave fans a lot of confidence as the Griffins headed to Hamilton to hopefully finish off the Bulldogs. I did not get to see the first two periods because of Internet problems, but did catch the third. The Bulldogs got on the board first, very early. Stewart, who had just returned to Hamilton on Friday from Montreal, scored just nine seconds into the game. That’s all they managed for the whole game. Griffins captain Darren Haydar scored at 5:25 on the powerplay. Justin Abdelkader scored the only goal of the second period, and Cory Emmerton put the game away 13:45 into the third. Ville Leino chipped in an empty netter with 38 seconds remaining. The Griffins won by a score of 4-1 again (the magical score for both the Wings and Griffins these playoffs). The Griffins only had two shots in the third, scoring on both. The Bulldogs only managed three shots that period, and the final shot numbers were 23-18 in favor of Hamilton. The Griffins went 1-4 on the powerplay, while the Bulldogs went 0-2.
Justin Abdelkader was easily the MVP of the series for GR. He scored 6 goals, 8 points and was +4. He was also a huge energy player, replacing the hits that left with Darren Helm. He could have spent a little less time in the penalty box (15 minutes), but a lot of that time was from post-whislte fights. Leino was targeted by the Bulldogs all series, and finished with 12 points, including 3 goals. Jimmy Howard was apparently good in games 1 and 2, but looked shaky in games 3 and 4. He returned to form in game 5, though he wasn’t challenged much. I didn’t see a lot of him in game 6, so I can’t speak for where he’s at right now. Darren McCarty finished the series with 2 goals and 1 assist, while Aaron Downey had 1 assist and 13 penalty minutes.
The Griffins will now face the Manitoba Moose, who finished off the Toronto Marlies in six games. The series will start in Winnipeg, with games one and two on Friday and Saturday. The Griffins will again have a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule at home. Then the series shifts back to Manitoba on the following Sunday and Tuesday. Full schedules can be found here.
Griffins Disappoint in Game Three
The Grand Rapids Griffins surprised pretty much everybody by winning the first two games of the first round in Hamilton. Reports said that Jimmy Howard played really well in goal.
After attending last night’s game three in Grand Rapids, I don’t know what team played in Hamilton. Or what goaltender, for that matter. The Griffins did not look at all like they knew they were playing in the playoffs. They looked no different than they have for most of the regular season. Howard started the game wandering from the net, and things didn’t get much better. He let in five goals by the end of the game. It’s hard to tell in real time how many of those he should have had. He misplayed the puck behind the net at one point, giving up a prime scoring chance to Hamilton. At the start of the game, the defense was doing a really good job of clearing pucks away and getting to rebounds that Jimmy gave up. So I started wondering if he actually looked good in Hamilton, or if the defense made him look good. They lost the game, 5-4 in regulation.
There was also the officiating that didn’t help anything. They had an official that has plagued the Griffins all season long. He is so predictable that we knew exactly how the calls were going to be made. He calls everything (and I do mean everything) in the first period, resulting in numerous 5-on-3′s. Surprisingly, Hamilton got only one 5-on-3 and GR didn’t get any. After the first, this particular official generally swallows his whistle, no matter what. He made a few calls in the second and third period, but not enough. You could tell at points in the game that he had absolutely no control over the game, particularly over the Bulldogs. They were making what would be extremely dirty and dangerous hits during play after the whistle. And they never got called. They were particularly targeting Ville Leino.
In my opinion, and just from watching the game, the Griffins did not play that terribly. Once they were down, it did sorta look like they gave up. But then they would get an opportunity and score, and then they’d be right back in it. It wasn’t enough, though. Who knows what the outcome of the game would have been if the officiating had even been marginal. I have a feeling, based on the play of Jimmy Howard, that they still would have lost. But have almost an entire period without any five on five play really changes a game.
Ville Out, Dick in
Dick Axelsson has been officially signed to an amateur tryout by the Grand Rapids Griffins. Axelsson only played in 39 games in the Swedish Elite League this year, but he managed to total 3o points. Hopefully he can bring some of that offense to the Griffins, who, with the losses of Leino and Helm, desperately need it.
See the Griffins press release for more details.
And For Grand Rapids…Hamilton
The Grand Rapids Griffins will face the Hamilton Bulldogs in the first round of the AHL playoffs. And they will not have home ice advantage. After spending much of the second half of the season fighting with Manitoba for first in the North Division, they went 3-7 in their last ten games. This included three straight losses to Hamilton, and four games in which they gave up five or more goals.
The AHL playoffs differ from the NHL playoffs. The top four teams in each division make the playoffs, unless the fifth place team in the West Division has more points than the fourth place team in the North Division…but that didn’t happen this year so I won’t go into that. The first place team in the division plays the fourth place, and second plays third. Then the winners of each of those series’ play each other. After that, they play the winner of the other division in the conference (in our case, against the West Division). The winner of that plays the winner of the other conference. Also, the first two games are played in the city with home ice advantage, the next three are played in the other city, and the final two are played in the first city.
While I don’t want to be an overly pessimistic fan, I have to say that I have little faith in the Griffins ability to make it out of the first round…or even win a game. They are missing many key people because of injury and call up. Our defense without Jonny Ericsson is…well, let’s just say lacking. The goaltending we’ve been getting from Jimmy Howard had been getting better…until Friday night’s game, where he bobbled almost every shot he faced. Our offense is also having trouble scoring. When the do score a lot, they forget to play defense.
One thing I can say for this series is that it is going to be exciting. There is a lot of bad blood between Grand Rapids and Hamilton. It came out in Friday nights game. There was activity after almost every whistle. Games against Hamilton have always been intense, but it’s reached a new level. That should continue into the playoffs, making the series fun while it lasts.