Ericissons injury not as bad as it looks

By AJ Petronzi
In Play Magazine

The Detroit Red Wings played a game they should have won and instead gave two easy points to the Oilers in a 4-1 loss.

Tonight’s first goal honors went to Lubomir Visnovsky and Edmonton’s Robert Nilsson netted their second goal 12 minutes later. Dan Cleary scored Detroit’s only goal off a great feed from Todd Bertuzzi with less than a second left in the first. In the second, Edmonton added a pair of goals, both from the stick of Patrick O’Sullivan.

Detroit did not play well tonight in a game that saw very little in the way of penalties. Detroit had 12 giveaways in the game, but had 11 after the first two periods. Other than the goal by Cleary and a couple good chances, including a wide open net missed by Tomas Holmstrom in the second, the Red Wings just didn’t look like they were together for tonight’s game. Even with only three penalties called in the whole game, there was still a referee controversy when Holmstrom was tripped on a breakaway and no penalty shot was given. That did, however, lead to the Wings only powerplay the night.

Good news from the dressing room was that Jonathan Ericsson, who left late in the third when his skate caught a rut in the ice, is only day to day with a knee injury and will still leave tonight for the team’s upcoming road trip.