Wings 2, Ducks 4
This is the third game of the Detroit Red Wings west coast road trip, which has not gone well at all. Do these trips ever seem to go well? San Jose beat the Wings, 9-4, on Thursday. Then yesterday, the Wings lost again after having a two goal lead on the LA Kings who ended up winning the game, 4-2.
First Period
I was unable to watch the first period due to a meeting, but Jason Williams was made a healthy scratch after Pavel Datsyuk decided during warm ups that he was ready to play.
Niklas Kronwall is seeing an increase in ice time tonight in the absence of Mathieu Schneider, who suffered a lower body injury in the third minute of the game. Update: After the game, FSN viewers were informed that Schneider has a slight strain in one of his knee ligaments. Schneider told Babcock that he did not believe it was too bad.
Since Schneider only was able to play two shifts, the Wings only had five defenseman for tonight’s game as Chelios was still in Detroit dealing with the stabbings of two of his employees at Cheli’s Chili Bar.
There was four penalties in the first period. Three of them were for hooking. Anaheim outshot Detroit, 12-7.
Second Period
The Ducks’ first goal coame as Wings defenseman Danny Markov deflected Moen’s shot into the Wings net. Markov hasn’t had such a great 24 hours as he deflected the Kings’ game winning goal in last night’s game. Moen scored only a minute and fifteen seconds into the second period.
Two minutes and three seconds later, Niklas Kronwall took a shot that went wide to the right of the net. It bounced from the boards to the other side of the net where Mikael Samuelsson easily stuffed the puck in the net.
Later in the period, Robert Lang made a poor pass into the neutral zone (just outside the Wings’ blue line) resulting in a turnover. Melin took a shot. The Wings own Brett Lebda tried to block the shot, but he actually deflected the puck into his own net. Tonight, the Wings have truly been their own worst enemies.
Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf scored 2:03 later on a hard slapshot from the top of the face-off circle.
Detroit outshot Anaheim in the second period, 11-9.
Third Period
By the end of the second period, Kronwall actually logged more ice time than Nicklas Lidstrom.
Tomas Holmstrom got whacked twice while in front of the Ducks’ net resulting in a Ducks’ penalty. The Wings shot was deflected by an Anaheim player and then went off Homer’s skate (there was no kicking motion). Since the goal came on a delayed penalty, the Wings still got two minutes on the power play.
The Wings pulled Hasek with over a minute and fifteen seconds left in the game to give the team a man advantage so they could try and tie up the game. Unfortunately, Rob Niedermayer scored on the empty net with 4.1 seconds left to make the final score, 4-2.
Detroit outshot Anaheim, 17-6.
Overall
Anaheim’s goaltender Bryzgalov played a great game stopping all but two of the Wings’ 35 shots.
The Wings have zero points out of a possible six from their west coast trip so far. Hopefully, some changes can be made and the Wings can come home with two victories over Colorado (on Jan. 9) and Phoenix (on Jan. 11).
Both of the Wings’ goals came on the power play so at least that’s a step forward for the PP unit.
The Wings outshot the Ducks, 35-27.
After the game in an interview with FSN’s John Keating, Mike Babcock said that Mathieu Schneider has a slight knee strain, but he didn’t say which ligament. He also added that Schneider did not think it was too bad.
Babcock also commented on Kronwall’s play tonight:
“That’s the best game since he’s played for me and that’s for sure…I really thought Kronwall had a solid game.”
I’ll try to put up some quotes and game reactions tomorrow evening after my full day of classes.
Related Posts
4 Responses to “Wings 2, Ducks 4”
Leave a Reply
January 8th, 2007 at 9:56 am
[…] As far as the second Anaheim goal is concerned, Brett Ledba could have been credited with the goal and Robert Lang could have had an assist. Christy over at Behind the Jersey recounts the goal: Later in the period, Robert Lang made a poor pass into the neutral zone (just outside the Wings’ blue line) resulting in a turnover. Melin took a shot. The Wings own Brett Lebda tried to block the shot, but he actually deflected the puck into his own net. […]
January 8th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
the bounces went anaheim’s way for this one…
January 8th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
I love this site, and yes, despite my handle I am a huge Red Wings and hockey fan. But I live in Philly now-Flyers my second fave team-Can someone on this site tell me why the Fly Boys stink so much this year?
January 10th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Finny- Yeah, the Wings didn’t play fantastic and the bad bounces that didn’t go their way didn’t help…
I have no idea why the Flyers suck so much this year, but it certainly hasn’t been pretty for them…