Wings 2, Oilers 1
A game recap is up at Winging It In Motown.
Wings 5, Coyotes 2
The game recap is up at Winging It In Motown.
Thanks to George @ Snapshots, I found a video of Al Sobotka’s BBQ on October 11th. Al does that everytime the players have to do mass signings for the community/public relations department. Pretty much all of the pucks you saw signed by the players in the video will be sent out to various charities throughout the season. I was there working the signing and you can first see me around 15:13 into the video, but it’s just my back (I’m the girl wearing the blue polo shirt). The interns were able to eat after most of the players had left. I got the last hamburger and despite it being lukewarm (because I ate it awhile after it had been cooked), it was a huge burger and quite delicious.
Wings 4, Sharks 2
Game recap is up over at Winging It In Motown.
Ducks 6, Wings 3
The Wings lost last night against the Ducks in Anaheim. It was their second game of a western road trip in which they accumulated 13 minor penalties (5 of which were Holmstrom’s). Sound anything like a road trip last season?
Game recap is up at Winging It In Motown.
Behind the Blog
Due to the craziness of my schedule, I have not done any Behind the Blog features this season. Would anyone be interested in answering 10 questions about themselves, their blog, and the NHL? To check out what I’ve done in the past, you can check out the 33 blogs who have participated in the BTB category.
If you are interested, you can leave a comment saying so or you can drop me an email. Thanks!
Wings 4, Oilers 2
The Wings defeated the Oilers, 4-2, on Monday night. I have a game recap up over at Winging It In Motown.
Wings 3, Blackhawks 4 (SO)
Yes the Red Wings went into a shootout again, but this time they came up short. For more on the game, you can check out my game recap at Winging It In Motown.
In case you didn’t already hear, Johan Franzen suffered a knee injury during the second period and did not return to the game. It appeared from the replays that he hyperextended his knee and he looked like he was in a fair amount of pain while trying to put some pressure on the injured knee. I will be sure to update this post once we hear more about the severity of the injury.
Update: According to Bruce MacLeod, Franzen will have an MRI today to determine the extent of his injury.
After the game, Franzen was limping slightly. He compared the injury to what happened to his left knee last season when Willie Mitchell knocked him out with a late hit. That injury (to his left knee) kept Franzen out of nine games last season.
“I had almost the same kind of thing last year … (but) that was worse,” said Franzen. “It’s OK right now. It hurts a little bit right now, but I’ve got pain-killers.”
Wings 7, Blackhawks 2
In their regular season finale, the Detroit Red Wings defeated the Chicago Blackhawks, 7-2. Mikael Samuelsson had quite a game notching five points including two goals. It has to be a boost to his confidence since he has only scored one goal since January 7th.
A few milestones came during the game…
- Wings win their 50th game of the season, 4th time in franchise history.
- Tomas Holmstrom scored his 30th goal of the season, a career best. It’s pretty impressive considering Homer had a 19 game goal drought during the season.
- Kyle Quincey scored his first NHL career goal.
- Kyle Calder scored his 100th career goal (he scored twice today).
Other notables…
- Danny Markov scored a goal and notched an assist in the second goal of the game.
- Robert Lang had two assists.
- Chris Osgood (goaltender) was given an assist on Samuelsson’s second goal. He made 19 saves on 21 shots.
- The Blackhawks spent plenty of time in the penalty box with 11 minor penalties, a fighting major, a boarding major, a 10 minute misconduct, and two game misconducts.
- The Wings outshot Chicago, 39-21.
- Detroit won 63% of the faceoffs.
Interestingly enough, the Wings scored 7 goals without a single point from Pavel Datsyuk. As most of you know, Datsyuk signed a seven year contract extension yesterday. GM Ken Holland said during intermission of the game today that the Wings had offered Datsyuk a five year deal in October, but after negotiating during the season ended up offering a seven year deal (the longest in franchise history).
Dominik Hasek, Todd Bertuzzi, and Henrik Zetterberg did not play, but all three are expected to play in the first game of the playoffs. GM Ken Holland told Ken Roberts today that Zetterberg is not at 100% quite yet. Todd Bertuzzi should be cleared early this week to return to play after suffering a minor concussion during Thursday’s game after colliding with Wings’ goaltender Chris Osgood.
NHL Playoffs
The playoff schedule has not been made yet, but Holland says that the first game for the Wings will be on Thursday or Friday with Sunday being game two. As of this afternoon, the Wings don’t know who they will face in the first round. It’ll be either Calgary or Colorado and all Calgary has to do is win one game or have Colorado lose one game to clinch their playoff spot. Calgary scares me a bit so I’d prefer to play Colorado, but it doesn’t seem likely.
Kronwall injures hip in Wings’ loss
Source: John T. Greilick / The Detroit News
Defenseman Niklas Kronwall injured his right hip 24 seconds into Friday’s game against Dallas when Stars’ Joel Lundqvist checked him. He had to be helped off the ice and was then taken to Detroit Medical Center.
The Red Wings said Kronwall would not return after he was taken to Detroit Medical Center for further tests.
Kronwall was hit from the side and into the end boards by Lundqvist as he stopped behind Detroit’s net as he tried retrieve the puck.
Kronwall, who was holding his right leg off the ice as he was helped off the ice, has already had a broken leg and major knee surgery during his three-season NHL career.
Helene St. James at the Detroit Free Press describes the moment of injury a bit more:
Kronwall was hurt when Joel Lundqvist hit him into the boards. No penalty was called on the play. Kronwall had to be picked up off the ice, and was crouched over as he was helped to the bench, grimacing in pain.
Update: Kronwall had to stay at the hospital overnight for testing, which definitely does not sound good. As of Saturday morning, they don’t know the injury officially.
“At this time we still don’t have the results back,” coach Mike Babcock said. “I guess we’ve got some preliminary (results), but they’re doing more tests so we really don’t have much of a statement; we’ll have that tomorrow. But obviously, he was not feeling very good.”
Wings 3, Dallas 4 (SO)
I only watched the first ten minutes of the game, but apparently the Stars overcame a three goal deficit with 10 minutes to go in the third to send the game into overtime. After a scoreless OT, the game went into a shootout where only one of the six players (Sergei Zubov) scored. The game ended with a Dallas victory, 4-3.
I was excited to see Todd Bertuzzi score his first goal in the Winged Wheel on a deflected pass 7:04 into the first. Kirk Maltby opened up the second period with a goal. With only 5:28 left in the second, Kris Draper scored a breakaway goal.
Bertuzzi’s goal was his third point in two nights. Draper scored a goal and notched an assist tonight and he was named the #1 star of the game.
Dominik Hasek was in net for the Wings and stopped all but three of the 24 shots. I’m not sure what happened, but Hasek let three goals in with 9:49 left in the third. It seems surprising to me because I believe he had stopped two breakaway opportunities by the Stars and looked to be playing well.
Detroit had outshot Dallas, 34-24, and had won 58% of the faceoffs. Both teams had five penalties apiece, but Dallas was the only one able to convert on a power play opportunity.
Wings 2, Predators 1
After a four game losing streak, the Wings have defeated the Anaheim Ducks and Nashville Predators in the last four days. Both games, the Wings actually showed up and played a good game. Hopefully, we’ll see this attitude continue as the Wings face the Stars at home tomorrow night.
Few notes from the game…
- The Wings won, 2-1, in the pretty loud Nashville arena.
- Todd Bertuzzi notched two assists tonight, his first as a Red Wings player.
- I thought that there was a bad interference call, in my opinion, with 2:35 left in game. Johan Franzen accidentally tripped over Vokoun but it was after the puck had cleared the zone and he was trying to skate back towards the Wings end.
- With the Wings penalty, the Predators pulled Vokoun with just over 2 minutes left in the game to make it 6-on-4. They were able to successfully kill that penalty.
- Chris Osgood is 3-0-1 against Nashville this season. The Wings won the season series, 6-1-1.
- Pavel Datsyuk scored the game winning goal. It was his fifth goal in the last six games. He also notched an assist, his 11th against the Predators this season. If he keeps this up in the playoffs (which I hope he will), he’s going to get a much higher salary than at the start of this season.
- The Wings are now tied with the Predators in terms of points with a game in hand. Nashville is still #1 as they have two more wins than the Wings and thus would win the tie breaker.
- Detroit has only five games left with the last four coming against Chicago and Columbus. Now one would think that this would mean easy points for the Wings at the end of the season, but they’ve had a tendency to play down to their opponents lately. Hopefully, they won’t slack off and will stay focused to maintain the right mindset into the playoffs.
Wings 1, Ducks 0
Well, the Wings finally got back on track with a big win over the Anaheim Ducks breaking a four game losing streak for the Wings. Since the Wings game was the only one tonight, they are now tied atop the Western Conference with Nashville. Well, technically Nashville is still ahead due to having two more wins, but both teams have 103 points. Buffalo also has 103 points as they lead the Eastern Conference.
I was unable to watch the game as my hotel in Cincinnati did not carry the Versus channel so this game recap is just from the offensive scoresheet and various game recaps.
Pavel Datsyuk scored the only goal 4:50 into the second period on a backhand shot. Mathieu Schneider and Tomas Holmstrom were given the assists.
Both teams had eight penalties including a fighting major (Moen vs. Lilja) with neither team scoring a power play goal. Detroit outshot Anaheim, 28-25. Wings goaltender Dominik Hasek notched his seventh shutout this season after stopping all 25 shots tonight.
Before the start of the game, USA Hockey honored Wings veteran defenseman Chris Chelios for playing the most NHL games out of all the US born players. He’s played 1542 games thus far in his career.
Dave at Gorilla Crouch has a nice recap of the game.
Dominik Hasek made some big saves during an Anaheim power play near the end of the first period. Right as the period was ending Kyle Calder got hit a little late. The Wings responded and Mikael Samuelsson got in a bit of a pushing match with Scott Niedermayer and Andreas Lilja actually fought Travis Moen. It wasn’t much of a dustup but at least the Wings responded and showed they weren’t willing to be pushed around.