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CSSI Analysis: Red Wings 2 – Sharks 3 (OT)

Detroit fell to 3-6-1 in their last ten and 0-2-1 for their California road trip with a disappointing overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks on Saturday. Both teams played each other very hard, but in the end, Martin Havlat’s 2nd goal of the night was the difference-maker for San Jose.

I covered the reffing standard and the special teams in the recap. The short-short version is that the former was tinfoil-wrapped-shit-in-a-microwave while the second wasn’t quite as it seemed. Detroit’s PK looked worse than the 3/3 performance they put up and their PP looked better than 0-for-2. San Jose outshot Detroit 35-28.

CSSI Methodology Explanation here

Goalie Ratings

Jimmy Howard played a very good game. He stopped the pucks he could see and he was able to actually stand up to play. He even stopped some he couldn’t see. The ones that beat him were far from his fault. He also made more saves than Antti Niemi and it feels like he consistently had to make tougher saves while battling annoyingly slow whistles around his net. I’m going to give Howard a +1 in the head-to-head, but overall, I have him at +0.5. He wasn’t much of a difference-maker and I feel that for every big save he made, he also got bailed out by some bad shot selections that didn’t count as shots on goal.

Scoring and plus/minus analysis after the jump

[Editor’s Note: The editor ate my first complete draft of this post. Doing this writeup for the 2nd time is a bit painful. I’d happily discuss things in greater detail in the comments, but I’m going to take a bit of a higher angle on this than usual.]

The Goals

1st Period 00:48 – San Jose Goal: Joe Pavelski (snap shot) from Logan Couture and Joe Thornton
Danny Cleary loses his footing going for a loose puck and pokes it to an open wing inside his own zone where Bertuzzi recovers and turns it over to Dan Boyle. The Sharks cycle around the zone and eventually get it to Thornton behind the net. While Couture ties up with Stuart directly in front, Kronwall hands off coverage of Pavelski in the faceoff circle to Bertuzzi. Neither ends up covering him and he gets a shot off from the dot. This is blocked, but played into the middle by Couture where Pavelski picks it back up and goes high to the blocker side. Bertuzzi will get an extra minus for the turnover and an extra half for the blown coverage on Pavelski. Kronwall actually points at Pavelski right before he receives the pass, but isn’t there to clear the rebound or the man who he is closest to. Kronwall will get a minus.

Penalty Adjustment: 9:57 into the first, Tomas Holmstrom goes off for goaltender interference when he slashes the stick out of Antti Niemi’s hand behind the play. This is the only penalty of the game which will earn a minus (for Holmstrom), as it’s an egregiously dumb thing to do.

1st Period 18:23 – San Jose Goal: Martin Havlat (wrist shot) from Patrick Marleau
Filppula carries up ice through center and has a pass off to Ian White joining on the wing blocked by Boyle. As White recovers, Filppula interferes with his own guy and forces a weak dump-in attempt that Marleau stops at the Sharks’ blue line and turns to Havlat moving up ice into the Wings’ end. Havlat’s speed forces Stuart to give up the line and let Havlat skate to the top of the circles where he fires a wrister through Stuart’s legs and past Howard. The turnover by Filppula will earn him a minus while Stuart gets a minus for screening his own goalie. He has got to stop this shot from going right between his legs, no matter how great a snipe it is. Zetterberg and Hudler will be cleared of minuses. White keeps his for the turnover, but won’t get more because it’s not completely his fault.

1st Period 18:46 – Detroit Goal: Pavel Datsyuk (wrist shot) from Niklas Kronwall
Datsyuk wins the faceoff after the Havlat goal and dumps into the Sharks zone to chase himself and create a turnover. The Sharks are able to recover, but Kronwall steps up on Pavelski at the half-boards and takes it back. Kronner steps to the middle to make room for Datsyuk to make a move on Thornton and get to his forehand a few feet from the boards. Bertuzzi drags Boyle to the net-front while Kronwall sets up on the back door. Pavel throws a shot on net that he intends to create a rebound, but Antti Niemi cheats off the shot thinking it’s a pas to Kronwall. The movement by Niemi opens up the top far corner and the puck finds its way through and in. Datsyuk will get a self-assist and a +2 for his puck movement and retrieval. Kronwall will get a bonus plus for the pinch and a half bonus assist for making room to maneuver. Bertuzzi will also get an assist for his help on the boards and to draw defenders away and a bonus half-plus.

3rd Period 08:12 – Detroit Goal: Valtteri Filppula (wrist shot) from Doug Janik
A great in-zone shift by this line creates two scoring chances for Zetterberg and one for Brendan Smith which all fail to connect. Murray pinches the puck at the boards and gets it to Vlasic to dump it high and out of the zone. Janik gloves it down at the blue line, but has to clear the zone and poke it past an attacking forward. Filppula picks the puck up and circles back into the zone, getting room to enter with speed on Douglas Murray thanks to Vlasic running into Zetterberg. Murray bites on a fake to the inside and Filppula gets space to fire it from the faceoff dot to the short side and in. Zetterberg will get a non-touch assist. Replay clearly shows Z is on his line before Filppula even gets the puck. He is under no requirement to move out of the line he had established for the benefit of a defensive player. This is Zetterberg’s ice. Filppula will get a bonus plus for a lot of good work in keeping the Sharks’ pinned. Part of the reason he’s got room coming back in is also because the Sharks are changing tired forwards.

Overtime 03:23 – San Jose Goal: Martin Havlat (wrist shot) from Justin Braun and Dominic Moore
Dominic Moore carries into the Wings’ zone through center and loses his handle on the puck. He recovers by turning his back to Kronwall and protecting the puck. Kronner keeps Moore at bay and prevents him from turning into a scoring opportunity. While this happens, Cleary moves to try and take it from Moore, leaving his man in the process. Moore gets it to Havlat, who gets a great shot off from inside the faceoff dot. Howard stops the initial shot, but he rebound comes right out front where Braun gets to it first with a half-step on Abdelkader. Bruan tries to stop short and jam the puck in, but Abby pushes him on top of Howard. Havlat skates into the scrum and picks the puck out, wristing it over a down-and-out Howard and past Ian White trying to play emergency goalieface again. Kronwall makes a good play to eliminate Moore from making a dangerous shot (it’s not his fault that Havlat isn’t covered). Kronner will have his minus halved. Cleary picks up an extra minus and a half for failing to cover Havlat twice. Abdelkader also gets an extra minus for taking out his own goalie.

Penalty Non-Adjustments:
1st Period 14:52 – Dominic Moore (interference): Helm gets a step on Moore, who kind of steps into him. It’s a bit of a weak call and not worth an adjustment in a standard-free game.
2nd Period 06:51 – Torrey Mitchell (holding): Mitchell and Brad Stuart interfere with one another on a race to exit the Wings’ zone. Stuart wins the race and Mitchell takes the only penalty. This should have been matching minors.
2nd Period 18:10 – Valtteri Filppula (holding): Filppula momentarily snags Havlat’s jersey coming through center ice. Havlat sells it and the refs continue the joke of a standard.
3rd Period 05:09 – Justin Abdelkader (holding the stick): Just like when Mitchell took his penalty early, this is another where both players deserved penalties. Mitchell wins the race by sticking his lumber parallel and holding off Abdelkader, who responds by pinching his stick with his armpit and trying to turn Mitchell away from the puck.

Bonus Ratings

-1.5 to Brad Stuart: Stuart had an absolutely awful game in terms of player tracking and puck movement. He was easily the Wings’ worst defender.
+1 to Valtteri Filppula, +0.5 to Jiri Hudler and Henrik Zetterberg: This line was consistently good in this game and enjoyed a rather large corsi differential. They were the only line that was dangerous in all three periods and did a good job against their opposition.
+0.5 to Pavel Datsyuk: Pavs had a good return that was mostly covered by his goal, but he got better as the game went on and kept the Sharks’ top line from being more dangerous.
-0.5 to Jan Mursak, Cory Emmerton, and Tomas Holmstrom: The Wings’ fourth line struggled against the size of that of the Sharks. They were also brutally bad on a few shifts where the Sharks caught them with the Thornton line. I don’t expect much, but they delivered less.
+0.5 to Brendan Smith: Smith made good decisions and was rewarded with more ice time behind better forward trios. I thought he had a very good bounceback after the bad showing in the Anaheim game.

Honorable Mentions:
I hope Helm comes back soon.

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