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Up-to-the minute updates and insights from the Red Wings locker room at home and on the road. By Chuck Pleiness of The Macomb Daily.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Thoughts on Game 30 (2-1 win in Nashville)

-- Valtteri Filppula irst successful penalty shot for the Red Wings since 1995 when Igor Larionov scored on Artus Irbe. Detroit was 0-for-10 between successful penalty shots.
-- Pavel Datsyuk had a great faceoff night, winning 15-of-22 (68 percent).
-- Aaron Downey was whistled for interference ... after Tomas Kopecky's goal. How can you interfere after a goal? I didn't get to ask Downey after the game what the officials told him. I'll have to remember to ask Downey this week.
-- This was the second straight road game that coach Mike Babcock went with Nicklas Lidstrom-Andreas Lilja and Niklas Kronwall-Brian Rafalski pairings on defense. But he doesn't at home. There must be a matchup that he's getting out of that switch with the other team having last change. I have to figure that one out.
-- It's also the second straight road game that Babcock has split up Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg.
-- Datsyuk has been on the ice for nine even-strength Detroit goals in the last five games.
-- Chris Mason sat the bench for Nashville, but he wasn't supposed to. Mason was quite sick with the flu and a third goalie was sent for but didn't arrive in time for the game.
-- Funny quote from Chris Osgood about David Legwand pushing into him on Nashville's goals ... "He slid into me but he said Nick (Lidstrom) pushed him. I find that hard to believe because Nick never does anything wrong like that. I know that. That happens. He was driving the net and trying to score. He just slid off his stick. He didn't mean to do it, but still."
-- This was just the sixth time this season that Detroit was held to two goals or fewer. That's 20 percent of the Wings' games. Last season, Detroit was held to two or fewer goals in 39 percent of its games.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Perhaps pairing Lidstrom with Lilja and Rafalski with Kronwall removes the potential for exploiting the 2nd pair. Teams that scout must know that Lilja is good for at least one bad turnover per game... plus Kronwall is still not completely solid. You pair Lilja with Lidstrom and that sort of neutralizes Lilja's weaknesses... he always has an out just by passing to Lidstrom.

December 11, 2007 at 12:25 AM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i could very well be mistaken, but I remember cleary scoring a penalty shot in the playoffs last year?

December 11, 2007 at 1:30 AM 
Blogger Unknown said...

Cannot say that I know the hockey rules all that well, but try to follow Downey after the Kopecky goal. He clearly "bumps" into one of the Predators players. Whether or not that's interference I don't know, but it's definitely a stupid and unnecessary thing to do...

December 11, 2007 at 4:16 AM 
Blogger Chuck Pleiness said...

Yes, Dan Cleary had a penalty shot in the playoffs last year. Statistics for playoffs and regular-season are separate.

Yes Downey bumped Tootoo, but it should have been called un sportsmanlike conduct then. Interference can't happen without the play going on.

December 11, 2007 at 5:01 AM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I remember the Joe going nuts when Cleary scored that penalty shot against Kiprusoff. Unfortunately, I had went to the washroom at that point in the game and missed the whole thing. :(

December 11, 2007 at 1:34 PM 

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