On Red Wings

Brad Stuart scores the OT winner.

I like the way the Wings did this on Sunday.

The Kings had already won their game in come-from-behind fashion at Colorado, 2-1, in OT. So the Wings had to win to finish fifth — which they did with a wonderful 3-2 OT victory of their own on a beautiful Dan Cleary-to-Brad Stuart pass for the winner.

So the Wings will open up at Phoenix — no easy match, but a better travel situation than the West Coast.

The rest of the matchups:

• Chicago gets stuck with Nashville. Good luck, eh?
• San Jose wins the West and gets Colorado.
• The Kings get a West Coast matchup with Vancouver.

Score: Wings 3, Black Haws 2, OT

Final standings: Wings 44-24-14, 102 points, 5th in the Western Conference, 2nd in the Central Conference, 10 points behind Chicago. Considering where the Wings came from following the Olympic break and all the injuries this season, it feels like a championship.

What I liked about the game: The Wings finished 16-3-2, taking 34 of a possible 42 points. No team played better down the stretch — not even the Presidents Cup winning Washington Capitals — than the Wings.

What I didn’t like about the game: I’d be nitpicking faceoffs and 0-2 on the power play.

The BIG question: How will the Wings do against the Coyotes’ Ilya Bryzgalov? Or should we ask, how will the Coyotes do against Jimmy Howard? Let the playoffs begin!

Quote: “We’ve had a great run, but in saying that though, the most remarkable stretch for me was when we had no players, when we had eight guys missing and the guys hung in there and they battled and they chipped away and found ways to win games. To me that’s more remarkable than what we’ve done since the Olympic break. Since the Olympic break it’s been great, but we had skill to do it with. When we were doing it when we had no skill — or not near as much I thought that was impressive.” — Mike Babcock

Mood Meter: Celebratory.

Homer and Johan, so happy together!

So now we can think about Nashville. A lot. Mike Babcock is a terrific coach. So is the Preds’ Barry Trotz, even though he reminds me of No Neck Williams.

Score: Wings 6, Wild 2

Game #74 (8 games to play, 16 points), 89 points, tied for 7th place. Wings are 10-2-1 since the Olympic break, 6 up on 8th-place Calgary and 2 behind 5th-place Nashville with a game in hand.

Team        Games   Points   Place
Preds         75             91            5th
Kings        73             90            6th
Avs            73             89            7th
Wings    74             89            7th
Flames     74            83            9th

Upcoming: Two games in 8 days with Nashville — at Nashville Saturday night, in Hockeytown for a matinee April 3 (iPad day!). In between, Edmonton on Tuesday, Columbus on Thursday in Hockeytown. Detroit (8-1-1) Phoenix (8-1-1) and Nashville (8-2) are the hottest teams in the NHL the last 10 games.

What I liked about the game: The Wings have two great lines and one pretty good one. Against the Wild, it was the Pavel Datsyuk-Johan Franzen-Tomas Holmstrom line’s turn with all 4 goals, 2 by Franzen. Tough to stop Detroit the way Jimmy Howard and the defense is playing when they have three lines going.

What I didn’t like about the game: Dan Cleary, who is obviously injury prone, reinjured his groin.

What I like about today: Between the Wings game, four more college hockey quarterfinal games (most of them on ESPN-U), and the Criterium International (Lance and Alberto) from 2:30-4 p.m. ET, I’m not going anywhere today!

The BIG question: Whose the second-best team in the Central Division this year, the Wings or Preds? Chicago has earned No. 1 (but would you want their goaltending right now?) this season, but it’s time to put up or shut up for Detroit and Nashville.

Quote: “There were a lot of teams close to [the Wings] for a while, but they’ve definitely stepped up their game to make sure they’ll make it into the playoffs.” — Greg Zanon of the Wild.

Mood meter: Predatory.

Happy Wings come flying home for Sidney.

What is it that Lance Armstrong says? Every second counts.

It’s a 60-minute game, or 65 when you play regulation overtime. That’s 3600 and 3900 seconds, and the Red Wings have needed every last one of them the past two nights to pick up 3 of a possible 4 critical points in the standings.

After Brian Rafalski scored with .02 seconds remaining in regulation to save a point against Edmonton, Henrik Zetterberg did the same in OT to give the Wings 2 points.

Score: Red Wings 4, Canucks 3, OT

Game #71 (11 games to play, 22 points), 83 points, 8th-place, 2 points ahead of Calgary, 3 behind 7th-place Colorado (which has a game in hand — hi, Avs),  4 behind Nashville (but a game in hand) and Los Angeles (which has a game in hand).

The good news: If the Wings keep winning, 5th and 6th places could come into play.

The bad news: Nashville keeps winning, too. … Dan Cleary and Patrick Eaves missed the game with injuries, forcing Mike Babcock to dress eight defensemen.

What I liked about the game: The Wings didn’t give up a power play goal in two tries and now have allowed just 3 power play goals in the last 17 games. … Valteri Filppula‘s shorthanded goal gave the Wings a 3-2 lead against the Canucks. Filppula had a goal and 2 assists. … Todd Bertuzzi scored his first goal in 18 games. … Jimmy Howard stopped 29 of 32 shots. … Wings took 54 shots at Roberto Luongo.

What I didn’t like about the game: The Wings didn’t show up again, falling behind 2-0 and not scoring for more than 32 minutes into the game before scoring 3 goals in 5 minutes.
NOTE to Gary Bettman, who I’m sure doesn’t read this blog: Why does an ET team have to play so many 9:30, 10 and 10:30 MT and PT games as a member of the Western Conference?

The BIG question: Are you ready for Sidney Crosby and the Penguins Monday night in Hockeytown? I’m surprised Gary Bettman didn’t change the game to Sunday afternoon for NBC. Why would the Wings playing a third-straight game and the night before in Vacouver be a problem, right, Gary?

Mood meter: Sleepy from waking up at 12:30 p.m. to catch the end of the game. Worth it, but NOTE to Gary Bettman …

Quote: “I didn’t know how much time was left, but it was enough.” — Henrick Zetterberg

The goal scorers.

So, I wake up with about five minutes to go in the Wings-Flames game and the score 1-1.

(NOTE to Gary Bettman, who I’m sure doesn’t read this blog: Why does an ET team have to play so many 9:30 and 10:30 MT and PT games as a member of the Western Conference? Heck, the Bruins and Devils were done by the time this game started. Talk about a built-in time zone competitive advantage.)

But I digress.

At the start of the season, I would have told you that this was Tomas Holmstrom‘s last season with the Wings, that he was injury-plagued and wearing down from the constant beating this brave warrior takes every game in front of the net.

But it was Holmstrom’s goal with 1:19 to play in the game that gave the Wings this critical 2-1 victory; it was his screening presence in front of Calgary goalie Mikka Kiprusoff that helped, if not assisted, Pavel Datsyuk score on a power play with 50 seconds left in the second period to tie the game at 1.

Score: Wings 2, Flames 1

Game #69 (13 games to play, 26 points), 80 points, 8th place, 3 points ahead of the 9th-place Flames, 1 point behind 7th-place Nashville, and — dare we think — 4 points behind 6th-place Colorado and 5 points behind 5th-place Los Angeles.

Up next: At Edmonton Friday at 9 p.m., at Vancouver Saturday at 10 p.m. (NOTE to Gary Bettman, who I’m sure doesn’t read this blog: So, the Wings have to wait three days out West to play back-to-back games?)

What I liked about the game: In addition to Holmstrom, how can you not mention Jimmy Howard, who stopped 22 of 23 shots, including a penalty shot.

What I didn’t like about the game: Waking up at almost midnight to catch the end of the game … Brian Rafalski‘s double minor for high sticking. That’s two games in a row that Rafalski has been careless with his stick.

The BIG question: Well, Todd Bertuzzi is a big man, and he carried the Wings for a few games offensively earlier this season. But it has been 17 games since he last scored a goal. To his credit — and there are many who would have doubted it possible — Big Todd is playing well away from the puck and not taking stupid penalties in the offensive zone.

Quote I: “Don’t worry about scoring goals. Worry about being a good forechecker. Worry about being physical. When you get the puck, take it to the net and if you get a chance shoot it. Look after all your defensive responsibilities, take care of the puck and everything will work out just fine. Just play.”
— Mike Babcock on Bertuzzi, Dan Cleary (no goals in 11 games) and Valteri Filppula (1 goal in 9 games).

Quote II: “It looked like (Franzen) was going to get control of the puck so I just hung around the net. He knows where I am and I was lucky to get my stick on it.”
— Tomas Holmstrom

It’s not all about the Wings: I agree with the Alexander Ovechkin suspension, and I probably would have given him more than two games (sorry, Nate Ewell). It isn’t that Ovie didn’t push the Hawks’ Brian Campbell hard, it’s where he pushed him in relation to the boards. “He fell bad,” Ovie said. Yup. And you pushed him — does Ovechkin know how strong he is? — in a bad place. Ovechkin has great ice awareness. He plays hard, with passion. The hit was careless at best, dangerous at worse.

Mood meter: Sleep deprived but happy.