1st Period
A delayed puck drop (shocker) for tonight’s game is taken by Joe Veleno, flanked by Sprong and Perron, backed up by Chiarot and Petry, with Husso in net. Jake Allen will be minding the other net. Quick changes and some good efforts from Veleno, Raymond, and Seider lead to a pretty dangerous-looking chance for Moritz, but Allen is up to the task. Off the ensuing draw Raymond nearly picks a corner. The top line is making noise early.
Holl and Gostisbehere both pinch aggressively on their first shift. Rasmussen looks like he could get knocked off the puck by a stiff breeze. Larkin with a very rude takeaway on Caulfield to keep the Habs from getting their first shot on goal. A whole bunch of nothing happens for the next 3 minutes and the top line STRIKES! Joe Veleno’s 6th of the season!!
Detroit 1 – Montreal 0
After some boring extended offensive zone possession, Larkin makes an incredibly athletic effort to stay onside for Raymond bringing the puck back in. Raymond makes a slingshot play behind the net and finds the open net and he! Commercial. ESPN just. Went to commercial.
The Worldwide Leader in Disappointing Sports coverage comes back almost two minutes later. Still 1-0 Detroit, apparently. Cool.
Husso makes a stellar glove save on Montreal’s first shot on goal that didn’t happen during commercials. Somehow, that results in a penalty. Wings to the kill. AND THE RED WINGS SCORE! Fischer shorthanded!!
Detroit 2 – Montreal 0
Rasmussen was sprung on a breakaway after a fantastic outlet pass from Fischer. Moose didn’t particularly inspire confidence as he skated to the goal, but Allen lost track of the puck after Rasmussen’s attempt, just leaving the puck sitting in the crease to his left. Never-Say-Quit Fischer was there moments later to bang home the shorty.
Unlike Thursday night, the Wings were able to follow up a shorthanded goal by finishing the kill rather convincingly. On the ensuing shift, the Wings had numbers with Gostisbehere as the trailing late man with speed. Larkin neatly put it right in his wheelhouse in the slot uncovered and… Gostisbehere just kinda passed it back in Larkin’s general direction.
The Habs get a few dangerous opportunities, but just can’t convert those into shots on goal. Rasmussen has already lost a couple of 1-on-1 board battles this period, and I’m wondering if he might want to try a shorter stick to keep the puck a little closer to his body. Jake Allen saves a monster blast from Jake Walman, and we go to an appropriately-timed commercial break.
The top line comes out of the commercial immediately driving play again on the right end of the ice and Raymond nearly sneaks in a point-blank opportunity. Allen took a while covering his rebound and I hope our forwards are smelling blood in the water. Perron and Fabbri and Copp just put on an absolute passing clinic. It didn’t result in a goal, but it sure was impressive. Final minute of the first, Daniel Sprong throws an old school hip check in the d-zone, gets sprung for a 2-on-1 on an incredible sling from Seider, and Sprong makes no mistake absolutely SNIPING the shelf!
Detroit 3 – Montreal 0
An absolute bummer of a bounce off Petry results in a Habs goal with only 6 seconds remaining.
Detroit 3 – Montreal 1
The refs are reviewing something. I believe the refs are asking Toronto if it’s legal for Petry to help the Canadiens out so egregiously since they’re still paying half his salary. Apparently it is. End of the first. Patrick Kane is going to make Mickey Redmond drool all over the booth and I’m out of whiskey so I’m headed to the liquor store.
End 1. Detroit 3 – Montreal 1
2nd Period
The first couple minutes have very limited action and Patrick Kane saying Datsyuk wasn’t “the most physical guy” and I want someone to share video with him of Pavel’s myriad legendary fights. Gostisbehere has a very bad turnover at the line and took the wrong man on a rush moments later. Both result in a couple scary chances, but no goals. Detroit’s top line gets a couple of good chances and Raymond gets tripped up near the goal and it’s a RRRRRRED WINGS POWER PLAY! Ken giggles and says “We get to look at this PP here.”
Wings win a draw and Raymond can’t handle an unnecessary saucer pass from Gostisbehere at the blue line. 2-on-1 and Joel Armia snipes the shorty to the far side past Husso.
Detroit 3 – Montreal 2
Raymond takes a great seam pass from Compher but puts it right into Allen’s equipment. The second unit is out now and Seider with an absolutely sexy pass to the Cat and he puts it home!!!
Detroit 4 – Montreal 2
Kostin and Fischer follow things up with a few hundred point-blank shots on Allen but none of them go somehow. Two shifts later the refs see a 2-on-1 developing for Detroit and decide they want to keep things close a little longer and call interference behind the play. Since it’s time to kill a penalty, Patrick Kane is gonna check out for the evening.
Quick side note during this commercial loop, Chiarot has had a couple of really good low-key takeaways in the d-zone tonight and he’s getting dangerously close to making me complement his play. Case in point: Ken pointed out in the first that he’s a +8 this season and I almost spit my whiskey on the keyboard.
The first 57 seconds of this Habs powerplay is pretty ineffectual and the crowd sounds very uninterested. The next minute was just as bad and now the crowd is starting to sound decidedly French. Penalty killed. A little bit of back and forth ends with Larkin purposefully shooting the length of the ice hoping that Perron would beat out the icing. Who says the Captain doesn’t have a sense of humor?
Kostin gets a breakaway and he and Kovasevic crumpled into each other, then into Allen, then into the net along with the puck. Time for more commercials while Toronto makes decisions for the referees. We’re back, and Toronto is still justifying their paychecks. Hey, congrats to the Montreal Alouettes on their 10th Grey Cup! Refs finally say no goal and no one remained seated for that shocker.
J.T. Compher with a nasty takeaway behind the Montreal net, a great feed to Debrincat and an amazing save by Allen. Another great chance from Raymond immediately follows. No avail again, but holy moly are he and Veleno and Chiarot having really solid evenings so far. The top line took the ensuing faceoff and again had a very threatening shift. Veleno in no way looks out of place on that top line tonight. Fabbri gets blatantly interfered with and then cross-checked on the next shift. There’s no call, frustratingly, but Fabbri does the dumbdumb thing and elbows his assaulter and to the box he goes. Kill time, and this one feels big.
Caulfield found himself a fair amount of space and time 40 seconds in to the power play, but Husso’s glove was up to the task. Moments later, Caulfield absolutely jukes Chiarot and we’re headed to a 5-on-3 kill. That’s what I get for complementing Chiarot, I guess.
Habs win the draw with about a minute of a 2-man advantage. They get one shot and Walman clears it. They come back in and Walman does Walman things and the 5-on-3 is killed! 55 seconds remain on the Chiarot kill. Walman gets taken down with a dirty crosscheck to the tailbone. The referee veeerrrrry begrudgingly blows the whistle and Walman’s in clear discomfort on the bench. Walman was an absolute stud on that kill. Hope he’s okay.
The ensuing 4-on-4 results in a shot each per side, and now it’s time for a RRRRRRRED WINGS POWER PLAY! Eventually, they set up. Larkin gets an absolute gimmie after a beautiful feed from Compher, but like Raymond earlier, Larkin inexplicably put the puck directly into Allen’s equipment instead of the twine. Habs kill the penalty and there’s a minute to go, hopefully without any more parades to the penalty boxes. The period ends with a gem of a call from Ken: “Fans yelling ‘shoot!’. He passed. End of the period.”
End 2 Detroit 4 – Montreal 2
3rd Period
Final frame time! Really want to see the Wings come out flying this period and not take their feet off the gas. This could easily be a 6-1 game right now, but it’s still too close to sit back. Walman blocks yet another shot after an early icing and he’s clearly laboring. He’s played Norris-caliber defense tonight. We need that man healthy.
So we’re going to start this one off with another penalty. RRRRRRED WINGS POWER PLAY! Larkin-Compher-Perron, with Raymond and Gostisbehere at the points. Raymond (again) nearly gets one off the faceoff win. Wings looking disjointed on zone entries, but they finally get set up with the top unit and about 40 seconds left on the advantage but nothing materializes. Veleno tries to do it all himself and nearly does, but that’ll do it for the penalty.
These referees really want to be involved in this game. Debrincat played poor defense and he’s lucky there wasn’t a goal against, but he gets called for an absolute phantom of a hook and Mick is unimpressed. Moose misses a bouncing puck on the boards and does a terrible job of recovering after and Suzuki buries one in the top corner on the power play.
Detroit 4 – Montreal 3
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the referees have blown a whistle. Raymond doesn’t bleed after getting his face chopped because he’s not a team player, and we’re off to a 2-minute RRRRRRED WINGS POWER PLAY.
Armia almost got himself another shortie. Debrincat fanned on an opportunity in tight and Sprong sent the follow up 4 feet high and wide and the Wings are starting to look like they want to lose control of this game. Another disjointed power play results in a whole bucket of nothing and it’s high time the boys combobulate. Time to watch commercials none of us have seen before. It’s a one-goal game and my game script PTSD from recent seasons is getting triggered. 13 minutes to go.
The BSD crew is talking about the Petry trade just as he’s looking particularly awful. Armia gets a couple more looks, but Husso makes a couple routine saves. Husso does something Not Routine, and then Rasmussen wins a board battle. A weird play in front of Allen results in a puck that, after a diving effort from Compher, gets poked just over the cross bar. The camera angle and how slow the puck was fluttering made the fact that that puck wasn’t in the back of the net particularly maddening.
Sprong gets all the time in the world after a bad giveaway by the Habs in their own end, but he ran out of real estate and Allen was strong again. The ensuing faceoff resulted in a 4-on-2 for the Habs, multiple diving players, and nothing for the box score. It has been a pretty chaotic 4 minutes of hockey.
The first 40 minutes were totally dominated by the Wings, and now they can’t seem to generate any semblance of possession. So much so they’ve got Mick repeatedly begging for any kind of a forecheck as Montreal evens up the shots on goal for the game at 26 apiece.
After the commercial break, the next two shifts consisted of the Red Wings failing to clear their zone on 7 out of 8 attempts. This is not how you close out a game, fellas. Rasmussen has a nice shift and gets a great chance for his efforts, but Allen was just able to close the arm. 6 minutes remain.
The Wings shift to a 1-2-2 just content letting the Habs come at them in waves and wouldn’t you know it.. Gustav. Lindstrom. Yes, that one.
Detroit 4 – Montreal 4
Immediately Chiarot tries to end the game by giving Suzuki the puck on a silver platter, but Husso decides to stop that one. Petry and Chiarot continue their firesale giveaway, but Raymond takes the puck away and thank goodness 46 and 8 are heading off the ice. Two minutes to go and it’s still all Montreal.
Perron had a nice pass and Copp predictably fired a shot straight into Allen’s crest. Montreal fans are now singing about West Virginia and I have questions. 90 seconds remain in regulation. Husso makes another big save in close with 40 to go. The Red Wings are skating like they just want to get to overtime. And so we shall. We now go to an overtime that should have never ever ever EVER happened.
Overtime
Starting with Larkin, Debrincat, and Seider. Larkin gets a good chance. And another one. And a wraparound. AND JAKE WALMAN! BIG BLAST FOR THE WIN!! AND A GRIDDY!!
Detroit 5 – Montreal 4
Final Thoughts:
To have 2 points in the bag after 40 minutes and to play a third like that is unforgiveable. It’s not just effort and execution. I put this one largely on coaching. The best defense is a good offense, right? The coaches decided the scheme and structure of the second half of that final frame should be entirely devoid of a forecheck. Big, big boo on the coaching staff tonight.
Jake Walman was my POTG long before that OT winner. Good for Jake. What a game he had. Not to be lost in that abysmal 3rd period were the performances from the likes of Seider, Veleno, Sprong, and Fischer. The team played a great 41 minutes tonight.
