-- Tomas Kopecky had his best game. He created a few scoring chances, including making the hit that freed the puck on Kris Draper's goal. By the second half of the third period, coach Mike Babcock was going with three lines ... he had Kopecky skating with Draper and Dan Cleary and Dallas Drake on the bench.
-- After the game, Babcock called Draper his best forward. He was right. When asked about the play of Valtteri Filppula, Babcock answered that the whole team didn't play well. Not a good sign for Fil.
-- The Blackhawks at times went with five forwards on the power play with Jason Williams and Yannic Perreault on the blue line. That led to more Detroit chances than Chicago chances though. I've never been a fan of the forward on the power-play blue line. Does anyone remember Scotty Bowman using two defensemen in front of the net in the late 70s? He'd station Larry Robinson and Serge Savard right in the goalie's face and that worked pretty well.
-- Good for Robert Lang. I'm still don't want him on the Red Wings, but good for him to have a couple of big goals already.
-- So many empty seats. I've said it before, but the economy isn't the No. 1 reason. (It's a big reason, but everyone is overplaying it.) The buzz is gone for this team in Detroit. People have become acclimated to the success. Funny how attendance just dropped over a cliff instead of dwindling. When we look back at this era though, think of how highly we'll regard this group of players ... Nicklas Lidstrom, one of the top five defensemen ever, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg in their primes, Chris Chelios putting on a shot, Dominik Hasek, one of the top five goalie ever.
-- Andreas Lilja's penalty for slashing Rene Bourque's stick that set up the winning goal was obviously not a slash. Bourque's stick just snapped. The penalty that I didn't like Lilja taking was midway through the second period when he moved Draper's loose stick, sending it into Johanson. The goofy thing about that was that Draper was right behind Lilja and about to pick up his stick. So he denied his teammate and got a penalty in one motion.