Red Wings Lose Fourth Straight 3-2 To Sharks

by joehass on Feb 11, 2010 10:13 PM CST in Game Recaps

The Detroit Red Wings playoff chances have plunged over the last two weeks. Tonight, against the best team in the NHL, they had a chance to stop the slide.

But they instead faced a goaltender in Evgeni Nabokov who stopped 50 of 52 shots. A bad defensive setup lead to a San Jose Sharks goal. And that led to the second straight shootout, where Patrick Marleau scored in the third round to hand the Red Wings their first loss of the season to the Sharks, 3-2.

And while the Red Wings might argue that they've at least earned a pair of points over the past four games, they've now lost four straight for the first time all season, and despite sitting only a point behind Calgary for the final playoff spot, the Wings have won only twice in the past 10 games.

Johan Franzen and Jason Williams scored for the Red Wings. For Franzen, it's his first goal in his second game back from his extended absence due to injury. For Williams, it may be a critical tipping point, as Fox Sports Detroit reported during the game that General Manager Ken Holland said he will make a roster move tomorrow prior to the Olympic roster freeze at midnight Saturday.

Meanwhile Jimmy Howard continued to show impressive control in net, with 24 saves. But for the fourth time in five shootouts, he gave up the game winner.

In the first period, with Jed Ortmeyer in the penalty box, Henrik Zetterberg came streaming down the center of the ice. Near the top of the faceoff circles, he passed it to his right on Franzen, who took an almost imperceptible windup and fired a bullet past Nabokov to earn his second of the season. Nicklas Lidstrom picked up the second assist.

The lead would last a whopping 25 seconds. Niclas Wallin's shot from the blue line went wide to the right of Howard, and bounced off the boards. Joe Thornton happened to be there, then snapped the puck into the net to get his 16th of the year, with Dan Boyle getting an assist as well.

Then, with nine seconds left in the period, Torrey Mitchell brought the puck around behind the net. He passed across ice to a wide-open Dwight Helminen, who had no trouble getting it in the net for his first of the season. On the play, Jonathan Ericsson seemed to miss his coverage assignment on Helminen, which led to the breakdown.

In the third period, Williams came charging up to the left of Nabokov. He fired a shot that was so fast off the back of the net that the officials on the ice completely missed the goal. But the replays made it clear, and the video replay took very little time to turn back the clock and put the goal on the net. Brett Lebda and Tomas Holmstrom earned assists.

After a wild overtime, Pavel Datsyuk missed the net while Williams and Todd Bertuzzi had their shots saved by Nabokov, while Joe Pavelski's shot was saved by Howard and Ryane Clowe's shot went wide to the right before Patrick Marleau's goal wrapped things up.

Detroit will face Ottawa on Saturday night before the Olympic break.

Player of the game: Johan Franzen. A goal on six shots in 20:44 of ice time is a solid indication that he's shaking off the rust pretty quickly.

Tweet Comment 8 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Good to see the guys who scored, score. Nabokov was solid pretty much all night and it was good to actually see the Wings get some shots on net. At least there was a point taken from the game.

Winging It In Motown

by Casey Richey on Feb 11, 2010 10:24 PM CST reply actions

defense defense defense

howard has been as good as we could have hoped for….atleast in regulation. but the common theme has been defensive breakdowns. hopefully ken holland has something in store

draft micah johnson

by dhall25 on Feb 11, 2010 10:48 PM CST reply actions

on the bright side of things

i really think the wings looked really good out there. for once it looked like, minus the 2 goals, that we were getting back to red wings hockey. it might be just because we played the sharks. haha. but i think this sens game will be a good determining factor if they can up.

it seems with franzen being back that this team has a different swagger about them. they are getting some good offensive chances, their forechecking was better last night. im hoping when kronwall gets back the defense will step their game up too.

one thing i notice was it seemed, besides that first PP goal, but they dont seem too aggressive on the PP. usually when teams take a late penalty or even one in OT the wings would capitalize on that, but last night they just kind of skated around hoping something would open up, especially on the OT powerplay.

draft micah johnson

by dhall25 on Feb 12, 2010 9:53 AM CST up reply actions

another shoot out loss geez

missed the game but i didn’t miss much i guess just another typical 2009-2010 red wing game

TULO = 2010 MVP!

Troy Tulowitzki: "When people think of the Rockies, I want them to think of a winning organization."

LETS GO WINGS!

by TuLoRocks2008 on Feb 11, 2010 11:13 PM CST reply actions

Two problems I've noticed over the past couple months

1. the shift after a goal: while most teams play hard to try to gain/maintain momentum after scoring or giving up a goal, the Red Wings tend to sit back or play sloppy defensively
2. the last few minutes of a period: teams hope to gain momentum going into the next period by picking up a goal at the end of this one; more often than not, the Red Wings sit back in the final minutes of a period

If it weren’t for the shift after Franzen’s goal or the last minute of the first period, the Red Wings would have won 2-0.

And what is it with second periods recently? In St. Louis, the Wings gave up 2 goals on 8 shots, in Los Angeles it was 3 on 13, and in Anaheim 1 on 9 and managing to get 1 on 21 shots (on the power play). In San Jose, they got 2 goals on 13 shots in the third period, but 0 on the same number of shots in the second. In Pittsburgh, the first goal was scored by the Penguins in the period in which they had the fewest shots—the second period. This is new: against Nashville, the Red Wings picked up a pair of goals, without giving up any, while being outshot 20-10 in the second period.

Another thing: Jimmy Howard tends to do poorly in periods when he gives up goals, but he tends to only give up goals in one or two periods. In San Jose, the Sharks scored 2 goals in 16 shots but had 0 in the remaining 18. In Anaheim, it was 2 in 14, but 1 in the remaining 16. In LA, it was 3 in 13 and 1 in 6. In St. Louis, it was 2 in 8, but 1 in the other 31. And against the Sharks again, 2 in 9 and 0 in the other 15.

Finally, the Red Wings had an extra player for nearly a full 2 minutes (apparently the Sharks had 4 players out for a little bit) in overtime, but only ended up with the same number of shots as the Sharks had, even though they badly outshot them the rest of the game. How does this make sense?

by bleep bloop on Feb 12, 2010 5:16 AM CST reply actions

Could have been worse

Good for Franzen. Great goal. And we have to be leading the league in 1 point losses. We’ve had a ton. And as far as the roster move, does anyone think Osgood could be going somewhere? A couple teams need a goalie and we’ve not been using him. Or do you think Babcock wants Ozzie in case we actually do make the playoffs? Just throwin it out there.

by pzar11 on Feb 12, 2010 6:11 AM CST reply actions

If we lose to the Sens on Saturday

I think it’s officially the end of the season. I am officially beaten down. I’m going to have to start attending support groups with fellow Wings fans, especially after these ludicrous shootout losses.

by eight_legged_freaks on Feb 12, 2010 10:09 AM CST reply actions