Scars & Stitches

I've decided every post should be named after a Guster song. I had Keep it Together a few posts ago and now I'm making it a permanent trend. I have really enjoyed the Red Wings series against Phoenix, particularly the 2nd period of game 7 and the craziness of game 2.

Who's my Red Wing? Justin Abdelkader. The guy won State a National Championship and now he provides them with a great spark in our lesser lines. It was a great idea for Babcock to insert him into the lineup after game 1 to provide us with some checking and toughness. Whenever I see that number 8 come off the bench I get excited. The only think I don't like to see is the number of penalties. I didn't realize this until looking at the box scores, but he has 23 penalty minutes this series?! That's a whole game's worth of action and he didn't even play game 1!

Who's not my Red Wing? Todd Bertuzzi. He's got 4 assists, but there is just something I don't like about him. He seems to blow a lot of chances by whiffing on his shot or putting it wide of the net. (And of course 2 minutes after I typed that he scored on a rebound to make it 5-1 in game 7.)

What is going well
Scoring from Zetterberg and Datsyuk. Penalty killing in every game except 1 and 6. Crisp passing and getting the puck far up the ice in 3 passes. Jimmy Howard when the pressure isn't on him and he isn't forced to win the game for us. Scoring in the 2nd and 3rd periods. Datsyuk playing good defense and stealing pucks away. Poke checking.

What is not going well
Getting shots from in front of the net. Draw a triangle from the faceoff circles to the net - we're not seeing a lot of action in that zone. Holmstrom needs to do a better job of getting in front of the net and we need to corral rebounds better as a team. Faceoffs. Producing goals when the pucks aren't bouncing our way. Dan Cleary - he has been invisible. He's playing 15 minutes per game, has 9 shots, and 0 points. Lapses in energy to start some of the games.

Series-Altering Event Shane Doan's injury in Game 3. He had a goal and an assist in the action that he saw. Phoenix is a team with limited talent and losing their captain was a crushing blow.

How badly can it hurt you to not convert on a 5-on-3? Very early in game 6, Detroit had a powerplay, followed by a 5-3, followed by another powerplay, during which Phoenix scored a shorthanded goal. The momentum swing was very apparent. We were all over them in the beginning in what looked like a carryover from game 5. After the SHG, Phoenix was in control. Towards the end of the second period in game 7, Phoenix had a 5-on-3 for a minute followed by a powerplay. After we killed off both, Stuart came rushing out of the box, found the puck at center ice on a breakaway and scored to give us a comfortable 4-1 lead.

Looking Ahead
I predicted before the playoffs began that we would lose in the second round and I stand by that more than ever knowing that San Jose awaits. Their series was close in the beginning with Colorado taking game 1 and games 2-4 going into overtime. The Sharks found their stride and won games 5 & 6 handily. They have the advantage of rest and from traveling. This is where being in the Western Conference puts Detroit at a disadvantage. San Jose had to travel 1300 miles to Denver while Detroit's commute to Phoenix was 2000 miles. Keep in mind they played game 5 until 12:30am Saturday in Phoenix, game 6 at 2pm on Sunday in Detroit, and game 7 on Tuesday. That's traveling 4000 miles in 4 days. What did the Sharks have to do during that timeframe? Fly home to San Jose after finishing off Colorado Saturday night. I think that their defense and Nabokov's experience will be too much to handle. Outside of a wild game 2, San Jose held Colorado to 2 or less goals in every game. We allowed Phoenix to score 3 or more in 4 of the 7 games. Although we were 3-0-1 against San Jose during the regular season. Still, I predict Sharks win in 6.