Good Things: Detroit Red Wings 4 - Dallas Stars 1

Another Tuesday, another home game against Dallas, another recap by this guy over here. But there was a slight difference in the scoreline as the Red Wings looked much better this time around and turned the lights out of the Stars. Haha I'm just foolin' around. Come on gang and join me in this recap.

Let's go to the bullets:

• Well, it-- /punched in face by Jordin Tootoo/
• A lot of brotherhood on display in this game. The Stars featured the brothership of Jamie and Jordie Benn, and their teammate Reilly Smith is the brother of (you guessed it! Good job) Wings D-man Brendan Smith. A few other lesser-known brother pairs in this game: Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg (twins, from Europe); Jim and John Harbaugh; Mike Babcock and Jeff Hancock; and Damien Brunner and the Little Caesar's logo.
  
• Brendan Smith is good and is going to get better, but you can just tell he has that "bad penalty" gene in him. Refs let him get away with an obvious boarding call in the 1st period. Is this something we could, like, radiate out of him? Oh maybe that's what Jakub Kindl is.
  
• Penalty kill looked strong going 5 for 5. And Jimmy Howard looked really strong too. I'm going to expand on something J.J. started yesterday, bringing up the people (not many of them, but still) who think that the bad stuff that this team has done so far is on the shoulders of Howard. I responded -- honestly now -- with the opinion that baby boomer dads, like all of them, hate Jimmy Howard. Goalies in general, I think. It's just a weird trait I have noticed among them, and I will soon present data to back this up. So if you are a baby boomer dad, or if you dislike Jimmy Howard at all, please leave a brief comment below so I know to avoid you for the rest of my life you miserable stain of watery excrement.
• The Stars being on the end of a back-to-back was hopefully going to give the Wings a leg up in this game, but I thought they acquitted themselves fairly well in that regard. Shots were nearly even, as were the hits and penalty minutes. But just once in this situation I'd like to see the team on a back-to-back explode into confetti.
  
• Kari Lehtonen's flurry of saves on Valtteri Filppula in the 2nd period were no joke. And as such I don't have a dumb quip for this point. It was just really stellar goaltending.
  
• The first Dallas goal was a collection of Detroit ass. Lazy turnover by Datsyuk at the red line, Kronwall was caught standing up at the blue line, Ericsson left his man to cover Kronwall's, Bertuzzi was in a diabetic coma, and Nick Lidstrom was in Sweden.
• Brunner has that knack for getting to spots in scoring areas that all great snipers seem to possess. It makes me excited! Welp that's just about the end of this bullet. BTW here's a portrait of Brunner I drew during the game:

• The Red Wing goals were nice and pretty to look at. Fil came up big with two goals on the end of Datsyuk assists. The Zetterbomb on the 5-on-3 power play was a much-needed goal for that woeful unit. And Brunner's tip-in goal, I tell ya I like this guy a whole lot. I don't just carve out 12 seconds of my day to draw a portrait of anyone and post it to a big time weblog like this one.
  
• Kyle Quincey Chase For Mortality watch: He was +2 tonight. He's now +1 on the season. This campaign ended before it even got started. God dammit where is Brett Lebda.
• All in all it was a pretty exciting game, full of scoring chances, big saves, espionage and intrigue. Tootoo had two fights in the 1st period, the second one being a fairly brutal one. If he was this insistent about staying off the ice it would've been a lot safer to just put on a Gustav Nyquist jersey.