The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

If this had been 1997 or so, tonight’s game would have been an outstanding one to put on national television.

But given that it’s not 11 years ago, and almost no one from either team in those fabled Detroit/Colorado games that featured so much violence and drama and hatred still remains, only the shadow of a dead rivalry, rather than palpable tension, remained hanging over the Versus broadcast.

Those games, complete with line brawls and goalie fights and probably four or five of the best players in the world, leave fan, media and player alike hoping for something that is impossible to achieve. What remnants may have remained of the rivalry have been rendered obsolete and irrelevant by passage of time.

As a result, tonight’s 3-2 Avalanche win, even though it was a perfectly good hockey game that was ultimately decided by a penalty shot in the third period, was more or less dramaless. Where the Wings/Avs games of old were circle-this-on-your-calendar, not-to-be-missed events, this was in just about every way one of 82 of the schedule.

Maybe it’s because Detroit has positively owned Colorado over the last few years, winning each of the last eight and 16 of the last 18. Maybe it’s because Claude Lemieux and Patrick Roy aren’t around to stir up passion and anger from the strangely emotionless Red Wings, who have spent far too much time playing from behind of late thanks to slow starts and the expectancy that they’ll win simply because they’re the best team just about every night. Or maybe it’s because there isn’t one person on the Red Wings anyone is afraid of.

In any event, the Avs came out completely unintimidated and beat up on Detroit with the counterattack. Both Wojtek Wolski and Paul Stastny scored first-period goals that capitalized on Red Wing mistakes and it was 2-0 Avs just 4:34 into the game. Detroit was punchless and seemed disinterested in the game. The Red Wings only blocked two shots all night, while the Avs blocked 16. There wasn’t a tremendous amount of checking (except for Brad Stuart, who led everyone with six hits), and there wasn’t a tremendous amount of inspired play from the Detroit bench.

Any time Andrew Raycroft completely shows up your team, for instance, you had a bad night. Raycroft stopped 34 of 36 shots in the win, and Detroit didn’t exactly make him earn it either. Lots of shots came from the perimeter, and Detroi’s shot selection in general (as evidenced by the high number of blocked shots) was poor.

Jordan Leopold’s eventual game-winner that came on the aforementioned penalty shot at 1:51 of the third was very nice, and a dagger to the Red Wings, who had been composing themselves a bit for the latter part of the second period. Marian Hossa’s goal to close the scoring was largely unimportant in the grand scheme of the game.

It was pretty sad, really. Versus spent most of the lead-up screaming, “RIVALRY GAME!” and the general malaise in the game from both teams was disheartening. It would have taken Tomas Holmstrom spontaneously combusting at center ice to make it even remotely interesting to someone who remembers watching that Detroit/Colorado game live.

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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.)

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So with Johan Franzen going down for a few weeks with a knee injury, the Red Wings needed a forward.

They called up Ville Leino, a highly-regarded rookie free agent out of Finland, from Grand Rapids. Except not. Because they don’t have the cap space.

There was talk that Leino was good enough to have made the team out of camp, but then the Red Wings went and inexplicably signed Darren McCarty to a contract and kept him on the team instead, and there he remains. The problem is that Franzen’s injury might not be bad enough that the team can put him on the long-term IR (meaning he’d miss a minimum of 24 days or 10 games).

If Franzen’s injury is that bad, he can go on IR and have his salary not count against the cap for the length of his stay in the M*A*S*H unit. But until the Red Wings determine that or send McCarty down (where he belongs), and one assumes that with a game tonight they’ll get the decision squared away fairly quickly, Leino, who has an $875,000 cap hit, will continue to play in a league he’s obviously far too good for (he’s 4-5-9 in five AHL games) and Detroit will look for scoring from within the team itself.

I really do wonder what was going through Ken Holland’s mind when he signed McCarty. The guy can’t really fight, skate, shoot, or defend any more and is obviously not trusted by his coach (witness his team-low 7:03 of time per night with no special teams play) but they signed him to a deal that was above league minimum. Out of loyalty or something? I don’t know. But for a top-class organization like the Detroit, it was a particularly dumb move, and now it’s coming back to bite them on the ass.

Tough break for the kid, but this is on the front office.

You’re probably going to hear a lot tomorrow about the hit Detroit’s Tomas Kopecky laid on Montreal defenseman Mathieu Carle (not to be confused with Tampa’s Matt Carle, though they play the same position. Someone pass that info to the Detroit color commentator).

Just five minutes into the Habs’ exhibition game, Carle carried the puck through the neutral zone down the right wing, dumped the puck in and less than a second later got demolished by a totally clean hit from Kopecky that he never saw coming. He was knocked unconcious and came back around about 15 minutes later while they were still working on him on the ice. He was taken off on a stretcher and brought to a Detroit hospital for further testing.

Watch the video for yourselves.

Some (namely Habs fans) will find the hit to be egregiously dirty. Others (namely objective observers who understand the sport) will say that it was perfectly clean, and that’s why players are taught to keep their friggin’ heads up in the neutral zone.

Anything that’s made of this is a total non-story. Even if the term “headhunting” is thrown around, it’s crazy talk. Don’t wanna get drilled, don’t put your head down. It’s that simple. Really.

Later in the game, Nicklas Lidstrom took a puck in the face and was also brought to the hospital. Yeesh. That could be bad, bad news for Detroit.

He is.. TABOO!

Steven Ovadia, of the fine news tracker Puck Update (one of my first visits every morning) brought this up today, and I’d completely forgotten about it, as he had.

Ty Conklin signed a one-year deal in Detroit on July 1. Does anyone remember this?

I have to wonder who Ty Conklin’s agent is, and how he keeps getting his client into these situations. Everywhere he goes, he’s the clear backup, and last year’s performance should have at least earned him a shot to start somewhere. But more important, look at the teams he’s been on since the lockout.

2005-06: Stanley Cup Finalist Edmonton Oilers backup (he infamously torpedoed any chance the Oil had of winning the Cup after starter Dwayne Roloson went down in Game 1). Edmonton lost to Carolina in seven games after looking like the team to beat.

2006-07: Eastern Conference Finalist Buffalo Sabres backup. Buffalo lost to Ottawa in five games after looking like the team to beat.

2007-08: Stanley Cup Finalist Pittsburgh Penguins backup. After bailing the Penguins out with a great regular season, sees his team lose in six games to Detroit.

And now he’ll back up Detroit in 2008-09, and the Wings are almost certainly headed to the Cup finals once again this year. It will obviously go badly for them, as Ty Conklin is as cursed as the tiki idol from when the Brady Bunch went to Hawaii.

Interestingly, too, after the Outdoor Classic on Jan. 1, he will be the only player in the NHL to play in all three of the league’s modern outdoor games (unless that rumored Canadiens game at Olympic Stadium comes to fruition).

Yay! I got re-signed!

Are you taking notes, Cliff Fletcher? This is how smart teams spend their money.

Detroit re-upped promising 24-year-old winger Valtteri Filppula to a five-year, $15 million extension today.

“We’re really excited about locking in a player this young and this good that keeps him off the market as an unrestricted free agent for a couple of years,” Holland said. “He’s the kind of player we can build around in the years to come.”

Filppula had career highs with 19 goals and 36 points last season. Then despite a groin injury, he played in all 22 playoff games and scored in the Stanley Cup-clinching win over the Pittsburgh Penguins last month for his fifth goal and 11th point of the championship run.

Having seen Filppula play live a few times (and that goal he scored in St. Louis coming off the wall two seasons ago still strikes me as a beauty, one of the prettiest I’ve seen live), it’s pretty obvious that this is an insanely good deal for the Red Wings. Is $3 million a year a little steep for a 19-goal, 36-point guy that’s defensively responsible? Sure. But in three years, when he’s popping in 30 and getting 60 points no problem — and still being very solid in his own end — it’s going to look like a great contract.

His 19 goals were the result of his only getting 16ish minutes of ice time and a very limited power play role, and his linemates were Jiri Hudler and Mikael Samuelsson (not exactly Zetterberg and Datsyuk).

Curiously, though, the move puts Detroit perilously close to the salary cap with a few free agents still unsigned. Makes you wonder if this is it for the ageless Chris Chelios.

For the record, Filppula still makes less money than Jeff Finger.

This is actually the law now.

I didn’t think the phrase “_______ sucks” would ever get into legitimate legislation, but it looks like I have underestimated the Tiny Toddlin’ Town.

So when Quigley put together an official resolution Tuesday celebrating the Hawks’ outdoor showdown against the Red Wings on New Year’s Day at Wrigley Field, he included a secret message to the reigning Stanley Cup champions and their fans.

He used red capital letters in the last line of his resolution to spell out a favorite chant he learned while growing up a Hawks fan ”in the second balcony in Chicago Stadium.” The letters spelled out, ”DETROIT SUCKS.”

That doesn’t seem especially secret. In fact, it appears to be rather conspicuous. But no matter, it’s awesome that people are getting this fired up over a regular season hockey game that’s almost six months away. Those Wrigleyville cretins might be on the verge of riotous action by the time this game rolls around.

And kudos to Quigley for making Wrigley Field and its surrounding area to be “octopus free.” We loved the way Gary Bettman banned octupus tossing incensed Detroit fans, and this will surely bring equal amounts of rancor.

Besides declaring Jan. 1 will be ”Chicago Blackhawks Day” in Cook County, Quigley’s resolution designates Wrigley Field and the surrounding area an ”Octopus Free Zone” — a dig at Red Wings fans’ tradition of throwing octopi on the ice after their team scores.

Good one. But looking at the way the rink will be set up on the field, the only person who could possibly throw an octopus that far is the kid from that movie “Rookie of the Year,” and he’s from Chicago anyway.

Quigley saved the best truism for last though.

”The good thing about being a Blackhawks fan,” Quigley said, ”is you don’t have to live in Detroit.”

I think even Detroit fans can agree with that one.

This is the setup for the NHL Winter Classic at Wrigley Field on New Years’ Day.

Unless they add seats on the field, no one in attendance is going to have a good view of this.

Hey whaddaya know he was a Cub fan!

I went to a Blackhawk reservation with my wife Helene. They had teepees and everything Indian you can imagine.

Is there anything Rocky Wirtz can’t do?

Soon after his old man was rotting in the ground, he got the Blackhawks on TV, made them relevant in Chicago again, oversaw a complete overhaul of the team’s attitude and image, and now he’s bringing his team’s fans an outdoor game.

“We have said from the start we are going to do everything possible to bring the Chicago Blackhawks back to the forefront of sports for our fans and the city of Chicago. This is indeed an historic announcement for the Wirtz Corporation, the Chicago Blackhawks, for our players, fans and for Chicago,” stated Blackhawks Chairman W. Rockwell “Rocky” Wirtz.

This season’s Winter Classic will be played between the Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings at 1 p.m. on New Years day at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, where the Curse of the Billy Goat and probably Henrik Zetterberg will cause the Blackhawks to lose in calamitous fashion.

Martin Havlat is already scheduled to miss the game due to injury.

Not pictured: baby turds

Ah, to be a Stanley Cup champion. Not only do you get the glory of winning the greatest trophy in sport, lifting it over your head, and drinking gallons of cheap Canadian beer out of it, but you also get to spend an entire day with it, to do as you see fit.

Some have baptized children in it, some have dropped it to the bottom of a swimming pool. Dogs have eaten dog food out of it, goalies have eaten cereal out of it. One Cup champion, it’s been rumored, even had sex with his girlfriend in it.

Of all those amusing “We left the Cup on a sidewalk” stories, this is not one.

But no indignity, real or rumoured, compares with what Draper’s newborn daughter Kamryn – diaperless – did to the Cup in June.

“A week after we won it, I had my newborn daughter in there and she pooped in the Cup,” said Draper. “That was something. We had a pretty good laugh.

“It was, well, clean it out. I still drank out of it that night, so no worries.”

I have a lot of questions here.

Why is anyone putting a naked baby in the Stanley Cup? Why isn’t anyone supervising said baby? Why is that something to have a pretty good laugh over? Why are all of Kris Draper’s kids named as ridiculously as he is? What does Bill Wellman, that creep with the white gloves that’s never farther than six inches from the Cup, think of all this?

But most of all, why did Kris Draper drink out of anything, Stanley Cup or not, that once contained his daughter’s steaming infant dump?

Look, there are many, many phrases I never thought I would read. “She pooped in the Cup … I still drank out of it that night” is among them, with all due respect to a pair of Brazilian girls and their love of cups. To be fair though, I never thought I’d type the phrase “steaming infant dump.”