TSO is comfortable yet slightly underwhelmed at the Wings' effort tonight. They came out for the first period, guns blazing, rattling two goals off early in the period, thanks to magic courtesy of Datsyuk and Eaves, and maintained a fast and urgent tempo until the first intermission.
The beginning of the second period left much to be desired, and though the Wings picked up the pace slightly in the second half of the period, not a whole hell of a lot occurred between then and the overtime winner by Rafalski.
A couple of quick thoughts:
1. Brian was extremely pissed at Zetterberg for failing to hustle to negate the icing called against Detroit late in the third period. I have a sinking feeling that had the outcome of the game been different, I'd probably be sleeping in the flood zone outside tonight.
2. Patrick Eaves is on fire as of late. For the most part, he played an amazing game; however, when he stuttered over and lost the puck that was right at his feet in front of Jimmy, I really considered hopping on NHL.com and purchasing a #17 jersey...and lighting it on fire. Because we weren't playing a team with the greatest offensive prowess, nothing resulted of Eaves's blunder, so all is forgiven over here at TSO. Now that we've gotten it out of our system, we'll just remember his awesomeness.
3. Pavel played a great game. We're still giddily and hopelessly in love with the top line.
And how's about one for celebrating our return to a playoff seed? Never hurts, right?
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Watched part of it, listened to part of it. I wish the Red Wings played Buffalo more often. Much better than having to watch Columbus 99 times a season (at least it seems like it). Buffalo isn't even in our conference but there seemed to be some genuine emotion out on the ice.
ReplyDeleteWinning was nice. The first half of the 2nd period was awful. Feet not moving again. Once they got the feet moving, things were better. Pretty exciting for Rafalski to net the game winner.
I liked how Cleary was doing his darndest to stake out a spot in front of the net tonight. The effort may not show up in the score sheet, but it's a nice intangible.
Someone remind me again what Bertuzzi is doing out there right now? He just looks out of sync lately. Playing through an injury maybe? I'll defer to the coach on this one, but I'm not seeing whatever Babcock is.
Monday's game should be good. Heard a post game interview on the radio feed, they were talking about making up for that awful 3rd period against the Flames and showing Calgary what's what.
Is it just me or was Danny all over the TV screen tonight? I mean we have hardly heard from him in what seems like months and now boom he gets an assist and his ass is all over Miller like Tawny Kitane is all over a jaguar.
ReplyDeleteI think someone reads The Scrappy Octopus. I always suspected that Drapes and Ozzie read TSO daily but I think that a certain ho'man (TPL shout out) is very happy that he now has his very own ho!
I am proud to be a Danny ho in the area code 269. What, what!
PS I like winning.
Michael: Wait, you mean there's a way to tire of hoping Antoine "He want to ride me, use me like pony" Vermette gets KRONWALLED into oblivion?! Teach me your ways...
ReplyDeleteAfter tonight, I am feeling good as the Wings head out on this road trip. Each win makes me feel more optimistic than the last. Also, you and Dena are 100% right about Dan Cleary: He certainly made himself get noticed tonight, after being off my radar for months now, at least since I blasted him in my review of the team around New Year's. We all know what Danny Boy is capable of (see: last year's playoffs), so when he underachieves, it's a bummer. Tonight, he put the works on Buffalo's defense and Ryan Miller. I can't help but think it's all thanks to Dena.
Regarding Bert, he was actually one of the few people I noticed during the extremely slow-moving first part of the second period. He created some noise around the net, which impressed me, considering no one else was really doing so at the time. I will agree with you that overall, he has lost his finesse since the top dogs returned to the lineup and Babcock juggled the line combinations. It makes me wonder if, like Cleary, Bert will elevate his play in the postseason or if he'll continue to struggle to find a role in with his relatively new linemates.
I admit that I had a really bad feeling about both this game and the Wild game. While I didn\t really feel good about the next three either, the Wings' ability to win these two has given me hope.
ReplyDeleteNatalie, the mad love for Dangle is understandable. I feel the same.
Andy, please continue to have a bad feeling about those games. While I was not pleased to see the team that showed up for the 2nd period, it was nice to see that we finally showed up in time for OT. Sara and I looked at each other nervously when we saw it was going into OT because we were both thinking, Oh God, please don't let this go to a shootout. It could've gotten ugly really fast.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, this game was pretty satisfying for me, actually, considering I had expected to lose this one. The Joe was as packed as I've seen it in a while, and the crowd actually seemed to care about the game (at least from my perspective in the nosebleeds. Still think we could rev it up a notch - Sara & I can only yell so much! - considering EVERY game is a playoff game now). Ryan Miller played like the Vezina-worth goalie that he is (no chance on the first goal by Houdini, the second he got burned on his poke-check) & I didn't mind him playing well (in fact, I hoped it would be a close game, because I didn't want to see my favorite non-Wing get lit up like a Christmas tree), Danny Cleary got intimate with said goalie, as did Homer (I have the pics to prove it) Jimmy managed to come up big when we needed him (for the amt of time that the Wings spent in the Buffalo zone, I was really hoping that Jimmah had a piece of paper out there taking notes on Ryan on rebound control...), Drew got a couple of good chances on his brother, and FINALLY Olympic Rafalski showed up to play (when we started the OT, I looked to Sara, and said, I bet Babbles is wondering where the hell Sidney Crosby went). I thought Raf played well all night, and I was glad to see that both he and Danny contributed to the big OT goal. Even Ryan Miller seemed okay with the results, because it would make his mom happy.
I have a couple of pics with both Ryan and Drew in them, but my camera screen didn't explode with adorable-ness because the Tuzzi was also present. Nice to see he's up to his "pass to nowhere" ways again...
Like most of you, I am ridiculously in love with the 1st line, which I think would make a good premise for a Disney movie (a Mule, a chipmunk, and a gentlemanly thief - think about it!), and I think that Hank's found new life being on a line with Fil, because he's someone that y'know, can make plays and feed him the puck and stuff (how Fil didn't hit the net during his many chances, I STILL have no idea). And I'm still shocked to see Lebda making relatively responsible plays. Thank you, Andreas Lilja, for beating the suck out of him for the moment.
I'm also ridiculously happy right now because I was able to catch the online feed of the Griffs game where Abby scored a goal. How I miss his adorably blonde curly hair & him throwing his big butt around (as Sara would say).
Let's start REVENGE WEEK off with a bang tomorrow night! Jimmah says we were embarassed by Calgary in our home building, so Monday is going to be payback. Considering we've lost embarassingly to Edmonton & Vancouver too this year, I figured it was an appropriate fit...
This is hilarious, Nitz: "I have a couple of pics with both Ryan and Drew in them, but my camera screen didn't explode with adorable-ness because the Tuzzi was also present."
ReplyDeleteI just reread it and died laughing. I mean that in the best possible way.
I miss Abdelkader, too. Like the deserts miss the rain.