If the Red Wings' annual Red/White game is an indication, defense and goaltending are ready for the regular season. The exhibition went scoreless through three running-time periods and a five-minute overtime before the White team outscored the Red, 2-1, in a three-round shootout.
Jiri Hudler (deke) and Mikael Samuelsson (deke) scored on Chris Osgood after a Henrik Zetterberg miss (five-hole). Tomas Holmstrom (deke) scored on Adam Berkhoel, but the netminder stopped both Pavel Datsyuk (deke) and Kris Draper (shot).
Dominik Hasek made 11 saves for the Red team before giving way to Osgood, who made 16 saves in the second half of the game. Jimmy Howard made 14 saves for team White and Berkhoel made 11.
Some notes from the exhibition ...
-- Although Hasek didn't allow a goal, Howard was the best goalie in the game. Howard made several sparkling saves, including stuffing Evan McGrath on a 2-on-1 blast and on the next sequence making the best save of the game, stopping Johan Franzen from a sprawled position.
-- Brian Rafalski had his worst game of the camp by far. The defenseman had three glaring defensive-zone giveaways and didn't have much on the good side of the ledger. To boot, Rafalski even hit Nicklas Lidstrom in the head with a dump-in. Not a good night.
-- Valtteri Filppula (groin) nor Dan Cleary (hamstring) played in the game.
-- Defenseman Derek Meech played a very strong positional game, moving his feet well.
-- Igor Grigorenko was silent most of the game, then had a great final shift in regulation, creating three scoring opportunities on one shift.
-- Aaron Downey had a poor game. The forward didn't hit much. He was in the only fight of the game, losing a decision to Neil Clark. Clark, who played in the Central Hockey League (low minors) last season, had a better game than Downey.