Red Wings 4, Maple Leafs 2: Post Game Snipes...

• Hey, look, I'm actually writing a game recap! This one comes to you courtesy of the fact that I have to work in the morning and had to skip a night out with my roomies. And also my rage over the Lupul goal/Howard's injury. It's always nice to put a good rant down on paper (or, you know, the internet) every once in a while.
• The first was one of the best periods I've seen the Wings play in a while. Passes were crisp. Their puck possession was dominant. Even though it ended tied at one, the Wings looked to be in control.
• The second was a little rockier, and the Wings found themselves in penalty trouble toward the end.
• They took a 2-1 lead into the premature intermission thanks to a classic Homer deflection in front of the net. How sad is it that his first reaction to the goal was to look over at the ref to make sure he wasn't going to wave it off?
• Since Dion Phaneuf's shot broke a pane of glass during a Toronto powerplay with a couple of minutes left in the second, the teams took intermission early to avoid a long delay. This kind of played in Toronto's favor since they got clean ice for the second half of their powerplay, but it ended up not mattering. The Wings took another penalty right before the carryover time wound down anyway.
• The real disaster came in the third period when Jimmy Howard went down with an injury. I've got some ranting to do about the ensuing goal, but I'd happily spot the Leafs ten such goals if it meant that Jimmy finished the game healthy. All this talk of the Baby Pegger (who, despite being my favorite goalie prospect for his Training Camp snipe, I have absolutely no desire to see in a Wings uniform right now) possibly being called up has me in full RSV mode.
• Just to be clear, in the NHL, this is not a goal, but this is. Listen, I like to think I'm a pretty smart lady, but I once again find myself confounded by events in an NHL game. I fail to see how a goal can be called back one night because a goalie initiated contact with a skater who was outside of the crease because of “incidental contact,” and then a few nights later, have a goal stand when a player bumped into the goalie in the crease and proceeded to fall on his back, pinning him to the ice. Take the jerseys the players are wearing out of the question. Only in the NHL does this make sense. Or at least we're supposed to think it makes sense. Or something. I'm not sure anyone really gets it.
• Luckily for the Wings (and my sanity), Jiri Hudler put them back in the lead for good with a quick shot off of a rush.  Check out this picture of his celebration at your own risk.
• Justin Abdelkader was all over the ice tonight. He must've had at least thirty brilliant chances. He didn't finish any of them, but it was a nice effort. Plus, he got into a fight after a big hit on Rafalski, which was also nice to see.
• It looks like Rafalski got lucky after the hit, as his knee brace protected him. It looked pretty bad at first though. I would've been pretty happy if that was the scariest moment of the game. Now that the playoffs are approaching, I'm becoming increasingly paranoid.
• Nick Lidstrom broke up a great scoring chance for the Leafs with a brilliant defensive play. You know, just another day at the rink for him. Sorry, boys, he's just better than you. It's not mean; it's just a fact. Please never leave us, Nick.
• On the other end of the defensive spectrum, Brett Lebda played exactly as you would expect Brett Lebda to play.  How's that Stanley Cup experience treating you now?
• Hey Maple Leafs fans: Todd Bertuzzi's empty net goal effectively ended your team's slight playoff hopes. TAWD Bertuzzi. Hahahaha. Snack on that for lunch.

Hero: Joey MacDonald
He's been astoundingly solid in his last few games, and performed admirably after taking over for Jimmy in the third. I still don't like it one bit, but I guess it does offer some glimmer of hope.

Villain: Joffrey Lupul
Bet you saw that coming, eh?

Final Thought:
This injury nonsense is making my annual post-season nervous tics come early this year.

Red Wings vs. Maple Leafs GP...

Red Wings: 43-22-9

Maple Leafs: 34-31-10

Red Wing Zen:

Niklas Kronwall

11-24-35, +/- 6, 34 PIM

Point and Laugh:

Mike Komisarek

1-9-10, +/- -9, 79 PIM

Weekly Wrap-Up Volume Five...

Here's your belated wrap-up since I forgot to do it on Friday amidst all the Thanksgiving festivities.

Caption Mondays:  Neuie's little brother won this week.  I enjoyed imagining Datsyuk trying to do an Aussie accent.

*in best fake Aussie accent* "When you see the winged Datsyuk make his pirate face, you know that he is hungry for battered duck."

Trivia Tuesdays: Someone finally beat Andy this week.  Clark was the first responder this time around.

This week's question:  Against which team have the Wings played the most playoff series? What is their record against them?

The Answer:  The Wings have played 23 series against Toronto over the years.  Their all-time record is 11-12.

Weekly Wrap-Up Volume Two...

Caption Mondays: My favorite caption this week was submitted by Sara from A Neuie Perspective. Hide your kittens, Cleary!

C Bear: What do you mean by am I looking for a cat-sitter?
TAWD: Oh nothing, just curious...
Eaves: Uh oh, not this again
Salei:*cough* Don't do it *cough*

Trivia Tuesdays: Andy won this week's trivia quick draw. That makes the leaderboard:

Andy: 2
The rest of the world: 0

It's my understanding that Andy is literally online every waking moment, so challenging him for the lead here is going to be tough. The question this week was: The Wings are tied for the league record for fewest goals scored in a seven-game playoff series. Who did they play? How many goals did the Wings score?

Answer: The Wings faced the Leafs in 1945. Each team scored nine goals in the seven-game series. Sadly, Toronto ended up winning Game Seven.

Ritola Claimed Off Waivers...

Mattias Ritola is headed to Tampa Bay after he was claimed off of waivers. This vindicates my decision to skip him in my player profile series. Granted, that decision was made more out of laziness than any actual savvy, but it makes me feel good. I know there are some out there who are really disappointed to see him go, but I guess I don't really care that much.

I think the thing people are hung up on is letting go of Ritola's potential. But that's all it is right now: potential. He's got a lot of it, to be sure, but he failed to develop at the rate the Wings hoped and he was out of options. This pre-season was his chance to earn a spot on the roster, but he wasn't particularly impressive. Ken Holland chose to hang onto Patrick Eaves instead, and I think it's the right decision. It's always hard to give up players who show that potential to develop and you definitely don't want to mortgage the future for the moment (ahem, Toronto), but I think Eaves can be part of the Wings' future. He won over a lot of Wings fans last season with his play and his hustle and you can't deny the chemistry he had with Darren Helm. In a perfect world, I would've loved to have seen Ritola pass through waivers and spend time in Grand Rapids, but that's not the way things work.

Another Lousy Saturday...

I didn’t catch enough of the game tonight to offer any sort of intelligent recap, but I thought I’d share what I saw. There’s really no reason for this other than the fact that I like to commiserate with other like-minded folks.

We arrived at a bar with 1 minute left in the 1st period. I managed to get left behind by my group when they got seated because I had naturally headed straight for the nearest TV. Much to my delight, I had arrived just in time to see the Leafs score their second goal of the night.

I was still feeling pretty good about things, though, because I hadn’t expected to see any of the game at all. On top of that, my friends had saved me a seat that was facing the closest TV with the Wings game on (clearly they know me too well). I got to semi-watch the second period right up to when Jason Williams got hurt. (Speaking of which, like everyone else, I initially assumed that he had blown out his knee. I guess compared to that, it’s actually good news that he broke his leg. Watching the replays makes me shudder though.) At that point, we were asked to move tables to make room for a large party, and we got exiled to a room where they were playing some out-of-conference football game that I could not have cared less about. So I spent the rest of the game leaning sideways out of the booth trying to catch glimpses of the game on the ½ screen that was still in view.

Judging by the final score and the recaps that I’ve read, I guess I didn’t miss much. Apparently, as someone was kind enough to point out in the comments on my GP post, my worst fears came true and the Wings sleepwalked through this one. They’ve got a long history of phoning in games against lowly teams and it’s always been one of my great frustrations with this team. Also, it turns out that Phil Kessel did indeed come into his own as the Leafs’ savior with his first goal of the season.

Also, I never thought I’d be genuinely upset to see Jason Williams go down with an injury. The options for replacing him aren’t particularly appealing if Eaves isn’t ready to go on Wednesday. I never thought the Wings would be facing a shortage of forwards after the three signings they made in August.

Wings vs. Maple Leafs GP...

Wings vs. Leafs @7 PM

1. Despite all of the Wings’ early-season struggles, we can still be thankful that we’re not Leafs fans. They have exactly 2 victories. Two. In 14 games. They actually doubled their win total last night by beating the lowly Hurricanes. The Wings, on the other hand have put together three solid games in a row. They’re in Toronto with all kinds of autograph sessions and media fanfare for Steve Yzerman to play against a weak, Eastern Conference opponent. In other words, this is exactly the kind of game the Wings like to sleepwalk through. Will they decide to show up and not embarrass themselves with a loss to the Leafs? Please, Hockey Gods, make it so.
2. Will Phil Kessel come into his own in his role as savior of the Leafs tonight?
3. With any luck, the Wings have taken their off-day to recalibrate their collective aim. The last game looked like the team dressed 18 versions of Mikael Samuelsson with all of the missed shots they took. How many shots are they going to send wide this game?
4. Every once in a while, Todd Bertuzzi does things that make me smile. Sometimes I even feel like I’m starting to like him. Then he does things like make behind-the-back passes right onto the tape of opposing players in the Wings’ defensive zone that inevitably lead to heart-attack-inducing scoring chances. Is he going to finally set himself on a course that will earn him my good graces, or is he going to continue to be the guy who keeps making me scare my housemates by yelling at the TV all the time?
5. With a win tonight, the Wings can overtake Chicago and Columbus for the Central Division lead (although, the BJs are playing Carolina, so there’s a pretty good chance they’ll walk away with 2 points to stay ahead of the Wings). Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the Central, who pretty much everyone agreed was the best division in the league at the start of the season actually has the lowest first place point total of any one in the league? There’s no way that will stay like that for the whole season, but I thought it was worth pointing out.

On a side note, I really like the look of the Leafs’ official website. I’m a sucker for old-timey photos like the one they use as the background. I probably won’t get to see the game tonight, which is disappointing because I always love a good Original 6 match-up.

Now, it’s off to the Big House for some football and glorious fall weather. Go Blue!

Preseason Scheduling and More of Jiri's Saga...

The Wings announced their exhibition schedule yesterday. This is exciting if for no other reason than that it gives us hockey fans a “light at the end of the tunnel” that we can look forward to. The real schedule is supposed to drop on the 15th or 16th, which is nice because it will give my friends and family plenty of advance notice for the 82 dates/times between October and April during which they should not attempt to contact me.

The Wings begin the preseason on September 16th when fan-favorite Chris Pronger and his elbows the Flyers come to the Joe. The Wings will also face the Rangers, the Sabres, the Leafs, and the Penguins before heading over to Sweden and playing Farjestads. Then they’ll kick off the real season with back-to-back games in Stockholm, which should be fantastically fun to watch.

The saga of Jiri Hudler continued today as the NHL filed some sort of complaint with the IIHF because they consider Hudler to be under contract with the Wings. Apparently filing for arbitration was an indication of his intent to play in the NHL next year. I find this all very ironic because it seems like not too long ago the KHL was complaining about NHL teams poaching players. My problem is that even if the IIHF were to rule in the NHL’s favor, would the Wings even want a disgruntled Hudler who felt like he got screwed by being forced to play for half of the money? I’m not sure I would.

The Examiner had a pretty good analysis of how the Wings can adjust for losing Hudler. I actually kind of like the idea of using Meech as a full-time forward. Especially if Lilja is able to play. The Wings don’t really need Meech back on the blue line, and he did a decent job at forward when he played there last season. I also like the fact that it would leave them with a little bit of cap room to play with at the trade deadline. If nothing else, it would give Kenny Holland a little while to adequately assess what the team needs instead of tying his hands now.

None of the options presented in the article are particularly spectacular, but thanks to the ever-lovely salary cap, there aren't a whole lot of options out there. All I can do is sit back and put on my "In Ken We Trust" t-shirt and know that he'll figure something out. (OK, I don't actually have a shirt like that, but you have to admit that it'd be pretty awesome if I did.)