5/25 Quick Links
- Johan Franzen went all out in practice earlier today. He should return sometime this week, but he’s a maybe for Monday’s game.
General manager Ken Holland just told me that Johan Franzen will practice full out today and at Monday morning’s skate. His status will be determined after that, but the good news is Holland saying, “He will be in the lineup sometime this week.”
Game 2 is Monday. Game 3 is Wednesday and Game 4 is Saturday. Hopefully, Franzen will be on the ice for at least one of those games.
- Out of Bounds blogs about how challenging it must be for Steve Yzerman to be watching the game from the press box instead of on the ice making the big plays.
Steve Yzerman was that fidgety stuffed shirt last night. And I can only imagine what must be going through his mind right about now. Down below, the next captain, Nicklas Lidstrom, played his usual robotically brilliant game on the blueline – a predictably major reason why the Red Wings smothered and shutout the star-struck Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-0, to move in front at the end of the first turn in these 2008 Finals. But I doubt that seeing how Lidstrom had things under control somehow lessened the angst Yzerman experienced last night.
- Former Wings and Penguins coach Scotty Bowman liked how current Wings head coach Mike Babcock handled Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The job the Red Wings did against Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin was what most impressed the legendary Bowman.
“We were talking about it with Babcock, and he said what he wanted to do with Malkin was give him some offence with [Valterri] Filppula and [Jiri] Hudler, and then give him some checking with [Kris] Draper, [Dallas] Drake and [Mikael] Samuelsson,” Bowman said. “Give him some variety, you know? He had some good matchups tonight. Babcock did a good job in that one.”
- The Detroit Pistons lost last night at home to the Boston Celtics, 94-80. The Celtics won their first road game of the postseason and has a 2-1 series lead in the Eastern Conference Finals (and home court advantage once again).
- The Detroit Tigers dominated the Minnesota Twins with a convincing 19-3 victory. Amazingly, they have 63 runs in the last five games. Impressive.
Kronwall Quick Hits
And because the media seems to have finally fallen in love with BTJ favorite, Niklas Kronwall. Here are some quick links (appropriately titled quick hits) to articles about the “hitman.”
- Larry Wigge at NHL.com has a great article on Kronner including this interesting snippet:
One thing about Kronwall that’s different from his Swedish teammates — Kronwall was a first-round pick, while Lidstrom and Franzen were third-rounders, Henrik Zetterberg was a seventh-rounder, Tomas Holmstrom was a 10th-rounder and Mikael Samuelsson came to the Red Wings as a free agent. But Kronwall almost fits the same successful late-round skill-set player from Sweden that the others did.
“Back in 1999 when I was supposed to be drafted, my agents told me to hold off a year, that NHL teams would not be interested in a 165-pound defenseman, and if I was picked at all it would be in the seventh or eighth round,” he recalled. “I worked with a personal trainer and the next year I was 189 and I was a first-round pick by the team I wanted to play for all along.”
- Don Cherry commented on Kronwall during CBC’s first period intermission.
About Kronwall’s hit on Pens defenseman Ryan Malone during a first-period power play, Cherry said, “This is a power play, Malone never dreamed that he would stand up and hit him. Who would ever think a guy would stand up and hit on a power play like that? He’s not even looking because nobody does that accept Kronwall.”
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