This will be another collaborative post by Sarah and myself (Megan). Yeah, we know Cleary’s not European. It’s an expression, people. Gosh.
First, a few notes about Babcock’s pre-game comments. Apparently Chris Chelios was out because he “jammed himself.” We’re not exactly sure what that is supposed to mean, and we’re not sure we want to know. Maybe he stubbed his toe. Lilja played in his stead. Lang was back, and Babcock had this to say about his return:
“Sounds like Langer’s back,” Babcock said. “He was giggling in there. He wasn’t giggling yesterday. He’s got few meals in him, so hopefully he can be back on track.’’
That’s right, Mr. Giggles is ready to go. He proved this with a first-star performance, notching three assists.
For a team that just played last night, the Red Wings looked surprisingly energetic tonight against the division “rival” Columbus Blue Jackets. The start of the game was very fast paced, with Detroit having immediate pressure. This caused the Jackets’ goaltender, Fredrick Norrena, to take a tripping penalty. The resulting power play didn’t look too terrible, with very quick and crisp passing. However, there were few shots and the Wings did not take advantage of this early opportunity.
At 4:31, Dan Cleary scored his first goal of the game. That’s right, his first goal, with more to come. Markov attempted a slapshot from the blueline. The rebound somehow found its way to Lang, who sent it back into the crease, where it came across the stick of Cleary, who shoveled it into the open net. 1-0 Wings.
Nineteen seconds later, Hudler was called for holding the stick that was hooking him. Now Jiri, you know it’s not okay to hold the stick of your opponent, even if just to remove it from your ribs. Lucky for Hudler, Columbus was rather listless on their first power play, failing to give us any reason to worry.
Hudler apparently did some thinking in the box, and he just felt terrible about his crime. So he flew out of the box, snapped up the puck, and rushed in on Norrena, eager to redeem himself. He executed a magnificent deke, and he had Norrena right where he wanted him - falling over. Hudler attempted to pull the puck to his backhand, and got the move perfect - minus one important detail (the puck). He might need a few more lessons with Datsyuk. Almost, but not quite, 2-0 Wings. (For those of you who are now entirely confused and would be more so after the next goal, at this point, it is still 1-0 Wings).
The game went back and forth at a very quick pace. However, Zherdev was apparently a little behind. And now for our Mickey Redmond quote of the night: “He’s thinkin in 8-track tapes right now.” Yes, Mickey is that old, in case you missed the other night when he was forced to ask Ken Daniels if a CD was “that thing that plays movies.” Oh Mickey.
Very soon after this (so soon, in fact, that Sarah missed it as she was writing down the Mickeyism), Cleary got his second of the night, right at the 16 minute mark. Lebda took a slapshot from the blueline, Lang pounced on the rebound (starting to sound familiar?) and passed it toward Cleary. Before it reached him, it was tipped by a Blue Jacket to a more convenient place, where Cleary was able to easily score. Here’s where we ask a question: when the heck did Cleary become our sniper? Not that we’re complaining. We’re just a little curious.
The Blue Jackets were jealous of all the scoring we were doing, so they tried to get in on the action. They tried to be a little too much like us, however, as they tried to score on themselves. They figured it out soon enough, though, and before long they had a scary 3-on-2, forcing Ozzie to come up big.
Columbus started the second the same way they started the first: with a penalty. 1:35 in, Klesla high-sticked Holmstrom and got to spend two minutes in the box. The Wings spent the first thirty seconds of the power play chasing the puck up and down the ice. There were a few high points of the power play, but not enough to make it a good one.
At 4:50, Norrena decided that the Jackets’ only hope was to take Cleary out, and we all know that if you want something done right….As Cleary was chasing down the puck, Norrena left his net, stuck his hip and elbow out, and Dan ended up on his back. Much to our dismay, it was not a penalty, and much to Norrena’s dismay, Cleary got up. Mickey was displeased, which prompted him to give us another lesson. No, he wasn’t telling us to keep our sticks on the ice. Apparently now he’s giving officiating lessons as well. He used this replay as a textbook example of interference.
At 8:45, Zetterberg scored on a play he started himself. He raced down to negate the icing, and the puck was picked up by Lilja to the left of the net, who passed it to Datsyuk in the left circle. Pavel passed it up to Lebda at the blueline, and he found Zetterberg waiting at the right side of the net. Hank had a pretty wide-open shot from that point, and he did not waste it. 3-0 Wings, and still a fun game to watch.
It started to get a little ugly at 12:32, when Hainsey took a shot. There were two Wings and two Jackets in front of Ozzie, and Hainsey shot right at this group. The puck found it’s way into our net, apparently avoiding the other two Jackets, as Hainsey got credit for the goal. 3-1 Wings.
Less than two minutes later, two Wings got entangled, and Vyborny was left alone right in front of Osgood. Chris went for the poke-check, but Vyborny shot high. 3-2 Wings.
At 2:31 of the third, Lang was called for holding. We weren’t watching at this point (sorry about that), but Mickey and Ken were apparently not happy with this call either. Fritsche scored on an ugly play. Kronwall missed a clear, sent the puck straight to Fritsche, who put the puck right between Ozzie and the post. Osgood had relaxed a bit, expecting that Kronwall had the clear. Basically, Kronwall made a sloppy play, and Osgood relaxed a little too soon. 3-3 tie, and the game is now a little less fun to watch. The Wings had surrendered their 3-goal lead. But wait, it gets worse.
At 3:45, Zetterberg were called for imaginary interference- apparently. Again we weren’t watching, and again, we’re very sorry. But Mickey Redmond was sent into fits over this one. Adam Foote took a slapshot from the blueline that went into the net. It was deflected by a Wings stick (it may or may not have been our favorite whipping boy, Andreas Lilja). 4-3 Jackets. Shortly after this, the Wings took their standard too-many-men bench minor. At this point, the game is no longer fun. If we were fans of a lesser stock, we would stop watching. But alas, we seem to enjoy the pain and suffering.
It is for games like this that no matter how bad the outlook is, we keep watching. So we whipped out our left over Big League Chew from the World Series (we had some left over because we forgot to chew it during the last few games of the series- sorry Tigers fans, our bad). Pavel Datsyuk apparently heard us chewing all the way in Columbus, and he responded accordingly. While I was panicking and mourning, Sarah assured me that Datsyuk the save the day. Very soon after that, he took the puck to the left side of the net, and took a beautiful shot that went between Norrena and the post (it took a few replays to figure out exactly how it went in). It was from a horrible angle, but that’s what we’ve come to expect from Datsyuk. 4-4 tie.
Hainsey took Norrena’s lead, and went after the most recent goal-scorer. Hainsey got his stick around Pavel’s ankle, and Dats forced to execute his pass mid-flip. Hank almost scored on the delayed call, but he hit the post. On the power play, our new dream pairing struck again. Kronwall got the puck to Lang, who took the shot. Cleary really wanted his first career hat trick, so he tipped the shot past Norrena. 5-4 Wings. Suddenly, we’re having fun again. I tell you, these games are hard on our stomachs.
Ozzie was forced to make a few big saves to preserve the lead. He was punished for this, as an undetermined Blue Jacket jumped on him. He may have been tripped, he may have fallen. We’re not really sure, as they went to commercial right after this.
At 18:15, Datsyuk decided to give us a little breathing room with another completely random goal. He shot the puck, and Norrena deflected it behind the net. Pavel chased it down and shot it from behind the net. He banked it in off the confused goalie for his second goal of the night (Norrena’s first!). 6-4 Wings, and the game is really fun.
This is where we start chanting for them to pull their goalie. I don’t know why, but I love empty-net goals. There’s nothing real impressive about them, but I love them anyway. With just under two minutes left, Hitchcock finally listened. With the empty net beckoning, Danny Markov took a shot from deep in our zone. He found the net with shocking accuracy. 7-4 Wings. This game was so much fun!!
If you are as shocked as us and want evidence of Dan Cleary’s hat trick, check out the official score sheet and shift chart.
