The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

Looking at the scores from the last few Red Wings games, you don’t get the feeling that this is the best hockey team we’ve seen in almost a decade.

4-3 over the Kings, 6-5 over the Blackhawks, 5-3 over the Thrashers, 4-3 over the Blues, 5-4 over the Rangers, and a 4-3 overtime loss to the Canucks.

That’s a lot of crooked numbers there. The Red Wings, in fact, haven’t allowed less than three goals since Oct. 13 against Carolina. Tonight’s 5-4 overtime loss to the Ducks didn’t help assuage the growing worries in Hockeytown.

This was the first Wings game this year I actually sat down and watched all the way through and I feel like I saw everything that’s good about them (the power play, ability to keep the puck in the offensive zone, the pretty little passing plays, etc. etc.) and everything that’s been wrong with them for the last two weeks (an ineffective breakout, the penalty kill, d-zone weak-side coverage, stupid penalties, lazy neutral zone play, faceoffs, etc. etc.).

The Ducks, led by Teemu Selanne’s power play hat trick and Ryan Getzlaf’s five helpers, played to these weaknesses perfectly, and, despite four two-man advantanges, still needed part of overtime and an iffy goal (I think it was a high stick, personally) to beat them. That’s how good Detroit is on the attack.

That Detroit power play, too. Wow. The way it moves the puck is barely comprehensible to the human mind. One second it’s at the point and the next it’s behind the goalie and both he and the viewer are left wondering how the hell it got there until a slow-mo replay reveals that Pavel Datsyuk or Henrik Zetterberg somehow went uncovered in the middle of the ice and redirected a shot through the screen and in. Both scored goals exactly in this way tonight.

They both also added even-strength goals and each was just as pretty. You forget the kind of skill these guys have until you watch them, and then you go, “Jesus Christ these guys are good. How did I ever forget that?”

But for how good both those guys were, neither held a candle to Selanne tonight. Teemu picked up two identical power play goals, wristing the puck from a low angle on a cross-ice feed. The misfit, his second, was an attempted cross-ice pass that went off Andreas Lilja’s skate and in.

The two ugliest goals of the game proved the most important for Anaheim. Brian Sutherby followed the play of Corey Perry and Getzlaf and put a rebound off the crossbar and in to put the Ducks up 4-3, and Francois Beauchemin swatted a puck out of midair (it sure as hell looked like a high stick, but I’ll defer to the war room in Toronto) at 1:39 of overtime to wrap up the game.

JS Giguere got the win in making 38 saves, while Chris Osgood managed to stop 29.

(But I’ll say this about the game: it reminded me, despite my dislike of the Red Wings because of their spoiled fanbase, just how hateable the Ducks are. They play an ugly, boring game (conceding most of the neutral zone in favor of dropping three behind the blue line on every rush makes hockey awful) and pretty much act like jerks the entire night while holding onto a “Who? ME!?” attitude every time someone is called for shoving a Red Wing into his teammate. This specific example happened twice. Selanne shoved Tomas Holmstrom into Osgood and negated a goal, and late in the game Scott Niedermayer pushed Pavel Datsyuk into Marian Hossa, who had the puck along the boards. Both times, the players reacted with disbelief, and the Ducks’ announcers scrambled to say that it was indeed Holmstrom and Datsyuk who were at fault.

And if you want to see what I think is a dirty hit to the head with the arms down, check out Chris Pronger’s hit on Pavel Datsyuk (if you can find it anywhere online.. I can’t) in the third period. Well after Datsyuk dumps the puck in and begins to turn to chase after it, Pronger throws him a quick shot to the jaw that dropped him pretty quick. Totally intentional, malicious, calculated hit from one of the true scumbags of the NHL. For the huge deal that was made out of the perfectly clean Weight-on-Sutter hit, this one won’t get 1/10th the coverage because Datsyuk was fine, and it was easily a more egregious attempt to injure an opponent. Who could expect anything less from a douchebag like Pronger though?

Another hateable thing about the Ducks is their broadcast. They INSIST on using the low-level “ice view” cameras stationed at the top of the glass between the penalty boxes and above the goal judges. Both angles make the game unwatchable. You can’t watch the rush develop through the neutral zone and you can’t see the puck go in the net on power plays. The X-Mo replay is a great feature but we didn’t see the puck go in the net from a proper camera angle once tonight. Another problem with the broadcast: it’s so busy showing commercials that it missed eight faceoffs, the start of the second period (by 27 seconds!) and the start of a fight. It was unbelievable and I can see why people in Anaheim don’t care very much about the Ducks.)

Elsewhere…

Toronto 6, New Jersey 5 (SO)

A couple things happened in this game that I never thought I’d see. Marty Brodeur gave up five in regulation to this Leafs team, for one. This Leafs team won a shootout, for the other. Matt Stajan led Toronto with two goals (that makes three in two nights) and the Leafs scored three power play goals. New Jersey got goals from an odd cast of Doug Clarkson, Dainus Zubrus, Jamie Langenbrunner, Colin White and Zach Parise, and Andy Greene somehow picked up three assists (oh how the value of that autographed puck skyrockets!). This was the first shootout win of the year for Toronto in four attempts.

Dallas 4, Minnesota 2

Note to Dave Tippett: Don’t play Turco no more. Tobias Stephan made 19 saves on 21 shots and helped the Stars to an easy no-doubter over Minnesota. Nicklas Backstrom gave up three first-period goals on 13 shots and the game was lost in about 15 minutes. Brenden Morrow, Steve Ott and Brad Richards had the first three goals and Matt Niskanen rubbed it in with a power play goal in the second. Sean Avery, it should be noted, had two assists and no penalty minutes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 1:46 am and is filed under Good night. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.