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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.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Thoughts on Game 31 (6-0 win over San Jose)

-- Now that looked like the Red Wings.

-- I like these lines better than the ones used in the past couple of games. Marian Hossa seems to be more dynamic on Pavel Datsyuk's line. Valtteri Filppula is a darned good third-line enter. Niklas Kronwall and Brad Stuart seem to be at their best as partners. Of course, it could just be that these lines are more familiar and thus more comfortable to watch. But I do like the balance of these units.

-- Hossa passed at being the first star of the game. Never heard of that before and it speaks to how good of a person that he is and where his priorities are. I didn't even know that players were tapped for the stars before the game was over. But when Hossa was told, he said that he didn't deserve the top star. That's pretty humble .

-- Evgeni Nabokov played bad.

-- Six even-strength goals might be a sign that the Wings are coming around five-on-five. We'll see if this is the start of even-strength play returning to being an advantage.

-- Brett Lebda was back in the lineup for the second straight game after being a healthy scratch in Phoenix. I have no idea how Lebda, Chris Chelios and Derek Meech will be able to get enough games in during the regular season to be ready come playoff time. The rotation would work much better without Chelios, using Meech as a spare defenseman ready to take over if any blue-liner falters. That would also open up cap room for a spare forward. But maybe the point isn't to have Lebda, Chelios and Meech all ready for the playoffs.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It was amazing to listen to the game on nhl.com, having to listen to the SJ coverage since the Detroit station was playing college football (I think). The San Jose announcers, one in particular, REFUSED to give the Wings ANY credit at all. It was just incredible to listen to.

December 19, 2008 at 11:04 AM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How did you listen to the game? I tried but all I could get was the NHL trying to sell the video feed.....if you have any info on what I was doing wrong, I would appreciate it.....thanks...

December 19, 2008 at 2:29 PM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Detroit announcers (FS-D?) I think are very enjoyable to listen to, very colorful. They seem very humble, and stay more or less unbiased during coverage, don't throw in two much "gloating".

December 19, 2008 at 3:41 PM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Bruce,

I'm the Assistant Editor of www.thegoodpoint.com and I was lucky enough to get an interview with Wings prospect Thomas McCollum just before he left for the World Junior Tournament to represent Team USA.

Here is the link - http://www.thegoodpoint.com/hockey/dec08/the-future-behind-the-winged-wheel.html

I just posted it on the site today so I thought I would let you know as it may be something your readers could be interested in.

Thanks,
Chris Pope
cpope@thegoodpoint.com
www.thegoodpoint.com

December 19, 2008 at 4:43 PM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On the "Gamecenter" page of nhl.com, below the "watch the action live" screen trying to sell the video feed, there's a button where you can choose tv or radio. Since I'm not going to pay for crappy streaming video, I just choose radio, then you get the option of the home team feed or the away team feed.

Honestly, I don't remember if I had to do something in particular the first time I found the radio feed, but now it's my default whenever I hit the gamecenter button below the score on the main page.

December 19, 2008 at 7:05 PM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks Garth.....I did find it and am listening to the Hawks/Flames.

December 19, 2008 at 10:06 PM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know this is a late comment, but I fully expected the Wings to dust off the Sharks in this one. It was San Jose's 3rd game in 4 nights. If this game was even remotely close I would have been worried.

The Wings looked great but they needed to against a tired, road-weary Sharks squad.

I really, really hope these two play one another in the Conference Final.
Not only will it mean that the Wings will be one round away from the Cup final, but it will almost guarantee a great Western Conference showdown.

December 30, 2008 at 1:22 PM 

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