Detroit visited Anaheim on Wednesday night trying to earn Jimmy Howard his 11th consecutive win on the road and ran into two things: a highly-motivated Ducks team that wanted to play very well defensively and a pair of referees who wanted to bring back the standard of the first year after the lockout. The Wings wound up losing the game in overtime on a Bobby Ryan penalty shot on what was the 14th call of the night. Despite being outshot 8-3 in the first period, Detroit eked out a slight shot advantage by the end of this game 29-28
As hinted at above, the penalty calling standard of this game was very tight. Detroit’s power play got 9 total chances (including on that lasted all of three seconds), and only converted on one. On the other side, the Detroit penalty killers managed to kill off all four Anaheim power plays (including the opposite three-second kill). For the recap below, I’m going to break down all the penalties into their own adjustment area. There were a few decent calls, including the one that gave Bobby Ryan a penalty shot, but ultimately, this game was hindered by referees Brad Lazarowich and Brian Mach.
CSSI Tracking Chart here
CSSI Methodology Explanation here
Goalie Ratings
Jimmy Howard played one of his three or four best games of the season in this game and came away with only one point to show for it. He made a total of five very big saves, including a couple where he sprawled out and got his glove on a puck he had no business stopping. It’s hard to say whether his biggest save of the night was going cross-crease to stop a Teemu Selanne shot on a rush during an Anaheim power play or whether it was offering Corey Perry the top shelf as he got the puck behind the Detroit defense and then snapping his glove up to grab the shot, but those were only two of his many good saves. Despite the loss, his rating on the night was +5.
Reminder: Only two more games remain in the H2H2 Pledge Drive as the 11th draws ever closer.
Scoring and plus/minus analysis after the jump.
The Goals
2nd Period 05:10 – Detroit Goal (PP): Pavel Datsyuk (snap shot) from Nicklas Lidstrom and Tomas Holmstrom
Anaheim clears the zone on a Detroit power play, but Kronwall gets it in the neutral zone and moves it to Lidstrom at the blue line. Lidstrom goes to Holmstrom deep on the boards. Homer immediately goes back to Lidstrom at the point, who dekes Todd Marchant as he pressures the puck. Lidstrom fires a slap shot that deflects off Ellis and into the corner. Datsyuk jumps on the puck and throws it at Ellis as he tries to get back to his post. Ellis is too slow to stop it and the puck deflects into the net off the goalie. Lidstrom’s move to shake the pressure by Marchant is a big reason for the keep-in. Lidstrom will get a half-plus.
3rd Period 01:54 – Anaheim Goal: Jason Blake (slap shot) from Teemu Selanne and Lubomir Visnovsky
After Detroit wins an offside faceoff at their own blue line, they try to move the puck across ice to start the rush. Kindl goes off the boards up to Zetterberg in the neutral zone, but Visnovsky steps up on him and pushes the puck forward to Selanne. The Finnish Flash and Jason Blake enter the Wings zone against a Kindl and Salei, who are backing off against the speed. After the two Ducks forwards criss-cross at the top of the zone, Selanne drops it to Blake, who tees up a slapshot that he fires past Ruslan Salei and through a screened Jimmy Howard. Salei will get an extra half-minus on this play. It’s a difficult play to get right with the speed involved on the rush, but Salei needs to find a way to either block or deflect that shot. Screening your own goaltender is one of those defensive cardinal sins. Bertuzzi and Franzen are cleared of minuses. Kindl keeps his minus because if it’s a slightly better pass, the puck doesn’t come the other way. By the same logic, Zetterberg keeps his minus because if he does a better job controlling the pass, the play doesn’t come the other way.
Overtime 02:50 – Anaheim Goal (PS): Bobby Ryan (wrist shot)
After the Ducks wrestle away possession in their own zone, Getzlaf is chased back deep by the forecheck. He turns at the top of his own faceoff circle and fires a fantastic pass to Bobby Ryan behind the Detroit defense. As Salei chases him down, Ryan feels the slight contact and takes a dive. Ryan fakes going backhand on Howard, brings it back to the forehand, and lifts it over the lowered glove for the game-winner. Unfortunately, in the middle of Ryan’s dive, Salei actually does trip him and, despite the call being a hook, does deserve punishment for committing a penalty on a breakaway. Salei will get a minus and a half. When Ryan is cycling in his own end, Stuart goes off for a change in favor of Kronwall. This is a good time to change, but Salei is covering the outside route up ice where Datsyuk has already taken up position to cover. It’s the defenseman’s job here to cover the inside of the ice and Salei is slow to realize this.
Penalty Adjustments
1st Period:
04:01 (ANA) Brandon McMillan – Hooking: Datsyuk enters the Ducks zone and McMillan gets his stick parallel, leading to the call. It’s a decent call, but not a forced error. No adjustment.
07:07 (DET) Todd Bertuzzi – Holding: Chasing the puck around the boards in the Ducks’ end, Bertuzzi takes one hand off the stick to push Bobby Ryan and gets called for a hold. The odd part of this is that it’s called by the low ref, who is close enough to see that it’s not a hold. No adjustment.
13:41 (ANA) Andreas Lilja – Hooking: Going for a pass in the neutral zone, Lilja and Hudler get tied up with one another and both go down. Sometimes, I’d like to see the refs treat this like incidental contact. There was good reason to give either player a penalty on this play and even better reason not to make any call. No adjustment.
13:45 (DET) Henrik Zetterberg – Interference: Directly off the faceoff, the refs perhaps think that one weak call deserves another and send Zetterberg to the box after he wins a faceoff and then ties up with Anaheim’s center going to the boards for the puck. No adjustment.
16:26 (ANA) Ryan Getzlaf – Hooking: While chasing Ericsson in the corner, Getzlaf stick-checks him from behind and gets the lumber caught in the defender’s arm. I don’t think this was a hook, but I’d likely be inclined to give a Wings player a minus for being on the receiving end of this call, as it’s an obvious stick parallel to the ice situation. Since that’s on Getzlaf and not because of some clever work by Ericsson, no adjustment.
16:53 (ANA) Toni Lydman – Delay of Game – Puck over Glass: Sucks for Lydman. No adjustment.
2nd Period:
00:33 (ANA) Toni Lydman – Interference: Off a faceoff, Lydman gets called for the exact same weak call that Zetterberg fell victim to in the first. At least the refs were consistently bad, I guess. No adjustment.
02:13 (DET) Danny Cleary – Hooking: Finally, and adjustment-worthy call. This time, off another faceoff, the puck gets behind Cleary while he stands his ground. As Beauchemin threatens to step around him, Cleary puts his stick into Beauchemin’s midsection and hauls him down. Cleary gets a minus.
04:34 (ANA) Brad Winchester – Interference: Another good call here, as Brandon McMillan dumps a puck around behind the Detroit net past Kindl. As Kindl turns to chase the puck the other way, Brad Winchester plows him over. Winchester goes for interference. This is a bad decision by the Ducks’ new acquisition, as he would have made a great play if Kindl had gotten the puck, but had plenty of time to prevent hitting the guy after seeing it get through. No adjustment.
18:19 (DET) Jonathan Ericsson – Holding: Jason Blake gets a step on Ericsson behind the net and the young swede responds by alternately grabbing him and then pushing him down. Ericsson gets a minus.
3rd Period:
07:51 (ANA) Ryan Getzlaf – Hi-sticking: Careless use of the stick by Getzlaf. No adjustment.
16:36 (ANA) Andreas Lilja – Holding the Stick: Datsyuk carries in 1-on-3 and the Ducks’ defense collapses enough to give him a shot from the high slot. Perhaps having nightmares of the last time the clock was starting to run out on a tie game with Datsyuk coming in, Lilja decides to take away the chance of the Magician getting his own rebound off a shot block and holds his stick. Datsyuk gets a plus.
19:47 (ANA) Bench Minor – Too Many Men (served by Teemu Selanne): Bench minor caused by coach too concerned about trying to game the refs for some calls and not enough attention paid to his line changes. No adjustment.
Bonus Ratings
+1 to Nicklas Lidstrom and Niklas Kronwall: Two defensive stalwarts on the Wings’ blue line that did an excellent job of limiting chances when they were on the ice. Lidstrom played 26:51 and Kronwall a full minute more than that.
+1 to Johan Franzen: The new father played a very solid game and very likely saved a goal with a great job backchecking on a Ryan Getzlaf shorthanded 2-on-1 chance in the first period. His seven shots on goal more than doubled the total of anybody else on the team.
+0.5 to Valtteri Filppula: I thought Filppula had a good return to form and made himself very useful all over the ice. I was surprised to see that he only got 33 seconds worth of power play time, considering how well he was handling the puck in this one.
+0.5 to Justin Abdelkader: He was one of the more dangerous forwards for Detroit in his 13:15 of ice time. He laid the body well and created havoc for the Ducks’ breakout.
Honorable Mentions: Pretty much everybody else on the team. There some good performances that got overshadowed by the team’s inability to score, namely Datsyuk’s line, but also Bertuzzi and Helm. There were also some below-average performances that were saved by good defensive play, especially Kindl, Ericsson, and Miller.
