-- Kris Draper was always a great faceoff man. Now he's superb. He's in the Rod Brind'Amour category. He had two offensive-zone faceoffs against Phoenix in a row ... both were won clean straight onto the defenseman's stick. (The first resulted in a shot that was deflected out over the glass, thus the second faceoff.) It was as if there wasn't another center in the circle.
-- It didn't take long for Jiri Hudler and Tomas Kopecky to switch roles. Hudler started the game on the fourth line, but was back on the second line by the second period. That said, Kopecky, Aaron Downey and Matt Ellis were very effective over the second half of the game. They kept the puck down low in the Phoenix zone.
-- The Red Wings took three offensive-zone penalties. Two were by Tomas Holmstrom, who said after the game that he's going to start to work a foot or so higher (further from the net) than he has been.
-- Valtteri Filppula has had a lousy start to the season. He got plenty of chances in Phoenix though and that's good news/bad news. He's got to bury one. At least on his two breakaways, he looked much better on the second, getting a good shot off. On the first, Filppula looked confused, sending a shot quite wide of the mark.
-- Phoenix drew a lousy crowd for a Saturday night game against the Wings. The franchise is still upping prices for Detroit games (compared with the rest of the league) and that's about the silliest marketing I've ever seen. If you can't draw and you've got one opponent that creates good crowds, don't milk it for more than a full house.