Post-Battle Royale Notes

The Wings beat the Hawks 3-2 last night, and that game was awesome.

Not necessarily because the Wings played their best game; the Hawks outshot the Wings and had excellent scoring chances, far too many for my comfort level, due to Wings' defensive breakdowns.

That being said, the Wings staved off two Hawks' power plays with a 2-man advantage, including one that ran literally to the final buzzer.

To fans who have watched the Wings' penalty kill throw up on itself over the past year or so, this is a huge confidence booster.

Some more things that rocked my socks last night:

--Chris Osgood. Ozzie was the man last night. He made 32 saves, stood on his head, and even the two Hawks' goals were really unpreventable by him.

--Kris Draper's goal was a-ma-zing. He also ended the night with 3 shots on goal and a +1 rating.

--Todd Bertuzzi (!) prevented a very scary scoring chance for the Hawks.

--Thank you, Brad May, for providing some toughness to the team. You'll never be Aaron Downey to me, but you're doing a pretty good job of making me like you.

--I'm feeling the Leino/Filppula/Williams line; I'm excited to see what these guys can do throughout the season together. (On a side note, FSD interviewed Mike Babcock during one of the intermissions, and I swear, he referred to Filppula as "Phillip-pula". This also rocked my socks.)

--Derek Meech, in for Brett Lebda, ended the night with a +1 rating. I know, right? Keep it up, Meech.

Some things that I'm iffy on...

--I want to see more offensive production out of Pavel Datsyuk. I heart this guy with all my being, so this isn't me being hard on him. It's tough love.

--Henrik Zetterberg looks injured still. He isn't skating with the same fluidness and ease that he normally does.

--I hope Jonathan Ericsson is ok. He took a puck to the same ankle he hurt during the Stockholm series.

--The Wings need to stop giving teams so many ridiculous scoring chances, and I mean both taking penalties and giving up turnovers. I nearly peed my pants when Niklas Kronwall got the penalty, enabling the Hawks to have 6-4 for the final minute and a half of the game. Yes, it made for an exciting game, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place.

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In other news, how excited do you think I was that this happened:



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Ovie and the Caps come to town tomorrow night. Should be a great game. Let's go, Wings.