CSSI Analysis: Red Wings 1 – Sharks 4

The Red Wings started their visit to California with a bad loss to a good team after dropping Thursday night’s game against the Sharks 4-1 thanks to an abysmal 2nd period.

Chris Rooney is a bad referee and it made bad things happen. He didn’t make the Detroit power play unable to score, but that’s neither here nor there. The Wings had chances to make special teams a difference-maker in this game and didn’t capitalize.

CSSI Methodology Explanation here

Box score here

Goaltending

Jimmy Howard let in one goal that he REALLY shouldn’t have let in and another one that he probably shouldn’t have let in. Overall, Jimmy Howard easily gets away with two goals and the Wings scored just one. We can share appropriate blame here between goaltending and the rest of the team.

The Goals

1st Period 04:59 – San Jose Goal: Joe Pavelski (wrist shot) from Joe Thornton and Brent Burns
San Jose strikes first on a patient play where Thornton out-waits the defense and finds Pavelski jumping up in the middle for a cross-ice pass and finish. The play starts on a faceoff in the San Jose zone which Zetterberg wins back to the half-board only to see Burns get to the puck first and head up ice with it. Kronwall steps up at the blue line with Alfredsson skating hard back. Burns is able to get it to Thornton moving through center against Kindl as Braun joins to threaten. Thornton heads into the zone on the right wing with Kindl shadowing him and Alfredsson getting back on Braun as they drive to the net through center. Kronwall skates back covering Burns while Zetterberg and Pavelski trail in behind Thornton on the right side about 20 feet behind. Thornton curls at the dot and faces back up ice as he glides to the bottom of the circle. Kindl remains in good position to prevent a back door pass and also to step up on Thornton if the threatens to the front of the net, but by now, Z has lost the positioning battle to Pavelski as they head through the slot. Pavelski traps Z’s stick and drags him up ice before abruptly stopping between the hash marks, forcing Zetterberg too far up ice to stop the shot when the Thornton pass gets through Kindl onto Pavelski’s stick. I’m going to clear Kronwall and Nyquist and halve Alfredsson’s minus. Nyquist is never involved in this play and Kronwall actually does the right thing on the step-up to try and slow transition. Alfredsson lets Burns get by him on the faceoff and overskates on the backcheck on Braun, but there’s way bigger problems than him on the ice for this play. I think Kindl has an opportunity to step up on Thornton here at the blue line, but I don’t particularly blame him for backing off. The problem is that when Thornton curls and Kindl is left to manage his lane, he’s not effectively covering the passing lane. He is worried about the low cross-crease when Thornton goes to the other side. Based on his last read, it’s not bad, but I think he could have the entire lane blocked and he doesn’t. Half-minus for Kindl there. Zetterberg’s back check on Pavelski is the biggest problem. There’s no reason for him to be cleanly beaten at the blue line and no reason for him to be as tied up with Pavelski as he is. He completely loses him and pays for it. Zetterberg will get a minus.

1st Period 16:48 – Detroit Goal: Tomas Tatar (backhand) from Luke Glendening and Brendan Smith
Detroit pulls even on a brilliant play by Tomas Tatar behind the San Jose net to take advantage of a defenseman without his stick. Tatar gets a good zone entry that gives him room to establish the zone before he dumps it behind the net where it gets all the way to the opposite-side half-boards before Brendan Smith steps up on it and gets a good pass to the middle of the ice where Glendening picks it up with space as Eaves circles around from the low corner on that side dragging Vlasic with him. Eaves and Glendening essentially criss-cross in the circle, forcing Boyle and Vlasic into each other and knocking the stick from Vlasic’s hands. Glendening shoots on net and Tatar pushes the rebound wide where he goes to get it behind the net. Vlasic watches the strong side with no stick while Boyle is stuck trying to keep him from circling back. Glendening sets up at the net-front while Eaves heads to the corner on the strong side for another option. After dangling behind the net for a while, Tatar pulls it out in front of the net around the stickless Vlasic and backhands it over the glove into the net to tie it. Tatar will get a plus for a great play on the zone entry and goal.

2nd Period 09:44 – San Jose Goal: Andrew Desjardins (wrist shot) from Bracken Kearns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic
Howard lets in a softy on the short side from a bad angle and the Sharks go ahead. Coming out of the Sharks zone, a bit of forechecking almost creates a turnover as the Kearns pass towards Desjardins behind his own blue line misses and bounces off the boards thanks to Kindl lurking for the threat of a big hit. Instead, Desjardins lets it go and then bounces it off the boards again to get around Kindl moving through center. It’s not a perfect move as Kindl still has enough speed to keep Desjardins to the outside as he heads down the boards after his own pass, catching it at the halfway point. From here, the Wings’ defense is in good shape to stifle the passing lanes, so Desjardins throws it on net from the low outside circle area. The puck finds its way through Howard for what would be the game-winner. This one is a bad goal and the minuses for Kindl, Alfredsson, Nyquist, Lashoff, and Zetterberg will be cleared. Kindl is the only one who could possibly prevent this, but I’m not remotely interested in handing any blame to him on keeping his man to the outside like he should and getting victimized by a brutally bad goal.

2nd Period 12:25 – San Jose Goal: Joe Pavelski (wrist shot) from Brad Stuart and Justin Braun
The Sharks make it 3-1 on Pavelski’s 2nd goal of the night after getting the Wings to scramble. The play starts into the Wings’ zone on a dump-in 36 seconds before the goal is scored. I won’t bore you with the complete play-by-play breakdown of how the Sharks keep the puck in the zone for that time, but I will say they move it around the zone extremely well and make a couple of key plays to get time and space here by taking advantage of a couple guys falling down and two plays where a player has the option to hold the puck and defers to a bad spot. Eventually, Braun passes from behind the Wings’ net off the boards to Stuart at the top of the zone for a one-timer through traffic. Howard stops it, but Pavelski is left alone at the side of the net to collect the puck and put in the rebound. I feel badly for Alfredsson because the only time the play actually comes through him is on the Stuart shot that ends up being the fateful rebound. I understand why he’s so low, but he contributes to this goal by being there and will keep his minus for it. Everybody else is getting extra punishment. Tatar is too far to the middle at the outset of this play and is beaten to the boards by the forechecker allowing the Sharks to keep the pressure. Later, Tatar tries to pinch Braun off, but loses him cleanly to a spin move in the corner. These are two mistakes which will combine to get Tatar a half-minus. Zetterberg will also get a half-minus for playing too softly watching Thornton this entire shift, which twice lets the Sharks escape without a board battle. Kronwall and Smith will each pick up an extra half-minus for turning the puck over at different times in this play. Smith gets unlucky to fall down on one of them, but he doesn’t recover cleanly. Finally, Zetterberg will get another minus on the coverage in front of the net. Tatar and Kronwall have switched, leaving Tats to watch the back door, which he’s doing. Smith is the chasing D who is covering Braun coming out from behind the net and threatening to the middle. Z is simply watching his space and not watching who is occupying that area, nor where exactly that person is. Pavelski has far too much room.

2nd Period 16:28 – San Jose Goal (PP): Dan Boyle (wrist shot) from Jason Demers and Joe Thornton
4-1 Sharks on a power play goal from the faceoff circle by Dan Boyle. The Wings get an early clear on the power play, but San Jose regains the zone and sets up on a coast-to-coast rush from Demers where DeKeyser gives just a bit too much room to the middle and doesn’t step up when he should. A pass back to Thornton momentarily fails at it’s tipped high, but Miller can get neither the clear nor the body positioning to prevent Thornton from going back to Demers who finds Pavelski cutting through the middle for a shot that misses low to the side of the net. Thornton gets to the puck off the end-boards first and feeds it back to the point where Demers has taken up position to set up the umbrella with Pavelski at the net-front and Marleau/Boyle playing as the high wings on the left and right side respectively. As the PK box adjusts back out to the shot having gone to the left side, Demers goes to Boyle in the right circle with room to get just below the dot before ripping a wrister into the net. Howard is a bit deep on this one and gets caught. It’s not necessarily a bad goal, which doesn’t matter because the PP means no automatic minuses anyway, but I don’t like how this all got set up. I’m going to give half-minuses to both DeKeyser and Miller for allowing the entry/set-up leading to this goal.

Penalty Adjustments

1st Period 12:34 – Detroit Bench (too many men): The Wings change behind a Zetterberg forecheck and Abdelkader misses the call to get off. This one’s on Abby, who will get a minus.
1st Period 19:42 – Henrik Zetterberg (holding the stick): Late in the first, the Wings get pinned in their own zone. Zetterberg gets the call for holding up Pavelski along the boards. This will earn Zetterberg a half-minus. I thought other stuff was let go and Pavelski was holding back as much as he was being held, but it’s a valid call.

2nd Period 05:53 – Andrew Desjardins (hooking): The Wings’ line of Bertuzzi-Abdelkader-Miller draws a penalty in the offensive zone getting the Sharks to run around a bit. This one is drawn by Bertuzzi, who will get a plus for strong positioning/puck retrieval work.
2nd Period 13:20 – Scott Hannan (holding): Dan Cleary battles hard in the offensive zone to protect the puck, drawing a hold by Hannan. Cleary will get a plus.
2nd Period 15:57 – Kyle Quincey (interference): Kyle goes to the box on a Tyler Kennedy dive after the Sharks’ manbearpig skates into the Wings’ defenseman and falls down. No adjustment. This is horseshit.

3rd Period 06:11 – Kyle Quincey (tripping): Joe Pavelski gets what is the third speedy rush into the Red Wings’ zone in a row. This time a D-man goes to the box as Quincey has his stick down on the ice addressing the puck and Pavelski skates into it and goes down early. This one is another bad call. The stick was in position before Pavelski got there and it’s another Shark going down easy. No adjustment.
3rd Period 11:57 – Justin Braun (hooking): Justin Abdelkader pulls a San Jose and falls down easy in a spot to make the refs call a penalty. No adjustment. A dive is a dive.
3rd Period 14:57 – Tyler Kennedy (slashing, fighting) and Kyle Quincey (fighting): Kennedy and Quincey go at it to discuss the idea of whether Kennedy is a diver (he is). Quincey gets the better of him and Kennedy goes to the box for the slash which instigated the fight. I’m going to give Quincey a half-plus. Replay shows him jawing to set Kennedy off and the end result is a power play for the Wings. That’s pretty ok.
3rd Period 15:55 – Todd Bertuzzi (mean-mugging, jaywalking), Tommy Wingels (mopery), and Marc-Edouard Vlasic (vowel-hoarding): Three guys take all-offsetting penalties in a scrum at the Red Wings’ crease. Refs try to control the game by taking the angriest people to the box. No adjustment.
3rd Period 18:07 – Scott Hannan (Rock-Em Sock-Em) and Dan Cleary (aggressive hugging, other stuff): Another set of offsetting penalties as Cleary cheap-shots Hannan in front of the San Jose net and has to answer when Hannan charges right at him to instigate a fight. No adjustment. I don’t care if Cleary wants to dirtbag it up late after the shit that went down on the Bertuzzi/Wingels/Vlasic play.

Bonus Ratings

+1 to Tomas Tatar: The most-consistently dangerous looking forward for the Wings out there. The competition was easier for him, but he outplayed it.

Honorable Mentions:

This one fell right about perfectly where it should have been as far as blame goes. I was most unimpressed with Kindl on the blue line and thought Quincey had a good game, despite the two bullshit calls that went against him. Zetterberg was brutally outplayed in this game while the lower forwards held their own pretty well.

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