Detroit has lost two consecutive games, allowing 11 goals and scoring only 2 in that stretch. The team has been solidly outplayed by the team with the best record in the league and the team with the worst record in the league. Hopefully they’ll be able to find some semblance of order for their game before Friday’s tilt against the San Jose Sharks, or they’re going to get killed.
Aside from the entirety of the hockey media, apparently the refs felt pretty badly for Columbus too. While the Jackets outskated the Wings, I don’t feel the difference in play warranted a 7-3 power play gap, especially in the third period when eerily similar plays were called differently. The Wings’ PK actually did pretty well for themselves in only allowing one goal on seven chances. Their power play faltered again though in being held scoreless in their three opportunities. Overall, the 32 shots allowed was not good enough for the Wings and the 31 they took were not of sufficient quality to solve the unbreakable mystery that is Steve Mason.
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Goalie Ratings
Ty Conklin had another rough start to the game. Despite coming back up to a somewhat respectable .903 save percentage by the end of the game, I felt he could have made better plays on two of the three goals he allowed. Mason definitely outplayed him, so he’ll get a -1 on the head-to-head rating. To Conklin’s credit, he held in well late in the game and got some help from his posts to keep this one from also turning into a blowout. For that, he’ll only get a -1.5 overall game rating.
Scoring and plus/minus analysis after the jump
The Goals
1st Period 00:21 – Columbus Goal: RJ Umberger (wrist shot) from Antoine Vermette and Ryan Johansen
The Wings start off the game in fantastic fashion, as they find themselves trailing before all the fans of theirs that filled the Nationwide got to their seats. A puck gets dumped into the corner of the Wings’ zone where Vermette beats Zetterberg to it and pokes it over to Umberger also behind the net. The two try to cross with Zetterberg and Stuart trying to keep them to the outside. Stuart gets a chance to take a whack at the puck, but can’t tap it past Vermette, who is now standing behind Zetterberg but too far in front of Cleary who is covering the point. Vermette turns it inside just outside the dot of the faceoff circle and fires a low shot on net. Conklin stops it, but the rebound goes straight to Umberger, who has outmuscled Stuart for position. Conklin guesses at Umberger taking it to the far post and opens his five hole enough for the Blue Jackets forward to slide it past him. I know the shot is from close and it’s a hard rebound to control, but kicking it right into the center and then opening the five-hole like that are two small mistakes that combine to make this a bad goal. However, the coverage breakdown of Stuart, Kronwall, and Zetterberg will mean that those three will earn back their minuses. Cleary and Datsyuk are absolved.
1st Period 04:54 – Detroit Goal: Darren Helm (wrist shot) from Justin Abdelkader and Todd Bertuzzi
The Wings dump it into the Columbus goal and the speed of Helm helps him take advantage of a miscommunication between Russell and Johnson. Helm gets to it first behind the net and pokes it to Abdelkader on the other side of the goal (but also behind the net). Here, both Russell and Johnson chase Abdelkader, who battles to get it back to Helm. Now with room to step out on the short side and toss a backhander into Mason, Helm takes the chance and sees his good work rewarded when the Columbus goalie doesn’t have his post locked down and the puck bounces up off of him and Helm bats it out of midair through him. Helm is going to get a bonus half-plus and a half self-assist for his hustle on this goal.
1st Period 08:56 – Columbus Goal: Ryan Johansen (wrist shot) from Grant Clitsome and Kris Russell
The Penalty – Detroit Bench (too many men): I don’t have a replay which adequately shows what happened on this play, so I can’t make an adjustment.
On the second half of the power play, Columbus gains the zone with Kris Russell setting up a one-timer from Grant Clitsome at the point. The puck goes wide of the net to Conklin’s left and bounces off the boards to Ryan Johansen. Here, Conklin inexplicably is covering neither of his posts (especially not the near one which he should be holding) and Johansen banks it off the goalie’s skate and in. This is another bad goal for Conklin. No additional adjustment.
Penalty Adjustment: 12:34 into the 1st period, Johan Franzen fails a hold-in at the Columbus blue line and sticks his hip out to prevent Vermette from going cleanly the other way. It’s a good penalty for Franzen to take if he’s not the guy forced to take it to make up for his own mistake. Franzen gets a minus.
Penalty Adjustment: 03:56 into the 2nd Period, Todd Bertuzzi doesn’t move his feet and instead lazily jams his stick into the hands of John Moore. Dumb penalty for Bert, who will get a minus.
Penalty Adjustment (x2): 07:14 in the 2nd Period, Filppula draws a hooking penalty on Pahlsson with some great work on the boards and a very good escape to move to the middle. Later on the PP, Zetterberg goes to the box for holding when Cody Bass grabs his hand and makes it look good. Filppula will get a plus, but there will be no minus for Zetterberg.
2nd Period 14:16 – Columbus Goal: John Moore (slap shot) from Cody Bass and Grant Clitsome
Later in the 2nd period, the Wings’ fourth line is trying to break the Blue Jacket’s forechecking pressure and manages to get the puck into the offensive zone. Unfortunately, Miller overskates the puck and sends Mackenzie skating the other way 2-on-2. Mackenzie takes it to the half-boards on Lidstrom before going back to Clitsome at the point for a one-timer to reset the cycle. The puck goes wide, but by the time Ian White adjusts to get around Conklin to the corner, Cody Bass is already there. Bass escapes White with a pass to himself up the boards that Patrick Eaves is slow to try to cut off. Bass gets to the puck first at the far-side half boards and gets it to Moore at the point. From here, Moore takes a step off the boards and fires a slap shot that deflects off Drew Miller at the top of the circles and in. I’m not going to clear any minuses here. Abdelkader missed the chance to shut down the pass to or the shot from Clitsome. White gets beaten and Lidstrom can’t get the puck off Mackenzie. I am going to give a half-turnover and a full coverage minus to Drew Miller. Overskating the puck starts this rush and not only failing to block the puck, but actually redirecting it past your own goalie is a very bad series of mistakes. Eaves will also pick up an extra half-minus for his coverage. He gambles on trying to cut Bass off at the boards and loses. Ultimately, making sure the puck didn’t get to Moore and that Mooore didn’t get a good shot from there is Eaves’ job.
3rd Period 19:06 – Columbus Goal (SH, EN): Derek Mackenzie (wrist shot) from RJ Umberger and Grant Clitsome
The Wings’ power play (granted by a Dorsett takedown of Holmstrom) is trying to capitalize on a six-on-four opportunity, but just can’t get a shot through. Finally, after a shot from Zetterberg bounces behind the net to be controlled by Datsyuk on the far end, they get a little gap where Pavel finds Hudler in the faceoff dot for a decent chance. Hudler’s shot is aimed top corner, but ends up hitting Clitsome in front of the net. Before Zetterberg can move in from his position at the wide low side, Umberger moves it up ice with some room. He exits the zone and gets it to Mackenzie on the right wing. Lidstrom pressures, but Mackenzie gains the center stripe and finds the empty net from the neutral zone to ice it. No adjustment.
Penalty Non-Adjustments:
1st Period 2:15 – Grant Clitsome (slashing): Bonehead play by Clitsome, but not a forced penalty.
3rd Period 2:16 – Jonathan Ericsson (tripping): Ericsson does get his stick into Nash’s feet in a board scrum, but Nash embellishes and Sammy Pahlsson doing the exact same thing with no call will mean no adjustment.
3rd Period 09:35 – Pavel Datsyuk (tripping): The Pahlsson non-call actually comes right before this and should have nullified it. Pahlsson leaned on Datsyuk away from the puck and when the Wings’ forward tried to stabilize himself, Pahlsson went down.
3rd Period 12:03 – Valtteri Filppula (hooking): Flip does a stick-lift on Kris Russell that gets done a dozen times in this game and somehow a ref standing 60 feet away without a front-view angle sees a hook. No adjustment.
3rd Period 17:48 – Derek Dorsett (holding): No idea what Dorsett is doing here. What an idiot.
Bonus Ratings
+0.5 to Darren Helm: He made several very good defensive plays and was doing a good job moving his feet in this game.
+1 to Jonathan Ericson: The call on him was crap, but he used the body, blocked shots, and seemed the more responsible person on his pairing. Considering Rick Nash was one of the people he spent the most TOI against, he had an incredibly solid night.
-1 to Johan Franzen: One shot on goal in his last two games and he didn’t look particularly threatening. I liked how he would take the puck to the middle, but he’s not making space for himself.
Honorable Mentions:
Just about everybody I wanted to punish already got punished on the official scoreboard. Despite giving out those pluses, the whole team didn’t play well.
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