Not sure where to start with this one.
The Wings started the game on time. Drew Miller scored a soft goal on Ilya Bryzgalov (which Dave Strader reminded us about a 1000 times). Johan Franzen busted out of his slump with a nice power play goal. And then of course we put on our tin foil hats for a little bit and wondered how the first Coyotes goal counted. At the end of the day though the first goal by Phoenix shouldn't have mattered in the grand scheme of things. The Red Wings had a three goal lead and this game should have been an addition to the win column.
More after the jump.
The second ended on a very high note after Darren Helm summed his penalty killing super powers and scored a beautiful goal on one of the best one man efforts I've ever seen. The Wings had a 4-1 lead going into the break.
The third period was, as the title suggests, an epic fail.
The Red Wings got outworked, out-hustled, out-skated, out-everything for most of the final period. It's been said time-and-time again, but you can't win in this league without a full 60-minute effort and tonight proved just that.
- Back to the Coyotes first goal for a moment. I'm sure I'm not alone on this, but, in the words of Gob, COME ON! We all know that if that was Holmstrom or Franzen that goal would have never counted. As I said earlier, it doesn't matter because the Wings had a 4-1 lead, but it just aggravates me. Make the rule more clear. Make the call reviewable. I don't care. I'm just sick of these calls and non-calls when it comes to screening the goalie, etc. Whenever the league does something about it, come tell me. I'll be sitting in the corner with my tin foil hat on.
- Glad to see Miller get another goal. I don't care if it was a soft or not. The fact that Miller is scoring and playing well will motivate guys like Kris Draper and Patrick Eaves to play better when they get their chances. It's a healthy competition for the bottom two forward spots. Throw Justin Abdelkader in there too.
- Darren "Danger" Helm.
- The score box might say 5-4 F/SO, but Jimmy Howard had a solid game. He made a few incredible saves when the Coyotes were having their way in the Wings' zone and two nice saves on breakaways. We've been over the first goal already. The second goal came off a a turnover by Jakub Kindl. A quick outlet pass to Helm in front of the net that works 9.8 out of every 10 times. Either Helm wasn't expected the pass of Kindl didn't lead him enough of the pass, either way, it was a bad turnover that never should have happened. The game tying goal came out in front with Jonathan Ericsson failing to tie up his man and failing to pretty much do anything.
- Clank. Two goal posts in a shootout.
- After the San Jose loss, I mentioned to Casey that I wasn't sure if this team could get to 50 wins based on the way they've been playing lately. They need to win 11 of the final 16 games. Before the season I would've all but guaranteed 50 wins. Not so much now. They should still get 100 points, but they need to get hot and go on a run here to reach 50.
- And with just 16 games left, how do WIIM readers feel about this team? The farthest west they have to travel is St. Louis. They have three games remaining against the red hot Blackhawks (only six points behind), two against Nashville, and visits from Vancouver, Washington, and Pittsburgh.
- H2H2 in less than a week. Hopefully the Wings can get back to their winning ways on Wednesday when many H2H2ers are in attendance. I know I'm looking forward to the party, finally meeting everyone and handing over a big, fat check to the children.
And finally, the Griffins won tonight 5-2. Francis Pare registered his first career hat trick and Brendan Smith added two assists.