I don’t know about you but I am just doused in an inordinate amount of sweat.
Like I am soaked. Head to toe. I am just swimming in it dude, and it feels great. The Detroit Red Wings will be flying out to Anaheim with this series tied two games apiece.
The weaknesses of our side are obvious and cause our buttholes to pucker with alarming frequency. But they are our butthole puckerers and we love them dearly. Through all of the flaws, all of the gaffes and all of the near-suicidal moments, they pulled it out. I don’t know how but they did it.
Expectations aren’t quite as sky high as they once were, and it has made these two OT wins feel a bit sweeter. Well, maybe not sweeter, but different. Expecting 16 wins certainly isn’t realistic from a 7th-seed team, so you cling to these moments a little tighter I guess.
Two overtime games, two wins, two goals from rookies. To the bullets, god dammit.
- Consider what you thought of him in January and try to wrap your brain around Justin Abdelkader’s absence being a huge story in a playoff game. Wait — sit down first. Shit I said those backwards.
- Anaheim started by controlled the opening minutes, as they had done the majority of the first three games. On one of the Wings few early chances, Mikael Samuelsson missed the net on a 3-on-2, which I’m going to consider a highlight because it briefly made me think of 2008.
- Kyle Quincey and Brendan Smith teamed up to turn the puck over and allow the Ducks to score the first goal of the game. How terrifying is this pairing? It is impossible to talk in hyperbole with these two. Literally anything you say about them could be true. They have the collective hockey brainpower of an ant fucking a bread crumb.
- With the Ducks up 1-0, Niklas Kronwall blew up Kyle Palmieri at center ice. It was glorious and you don’t have to feel guilty about enjoying the hell out of it because it was legal. A weird feeling, I know.
- When was the last time the Wings scored on a 2-on-1? Maybe they did recently and I just blocked it out, but it feels like this particular goal drought has to be well into the 20s. If somebody knows the real answer to this that would be cool. Come on, Internet.
- After a bad turnover by Todd Bertuzzi at center ice, the Ducks transitioned into a perfect scoring chance and Corey Perry shot the puck over an open net. Minutes later, Anaheim produced another golden opportunity and hit the post. Even with Jimmy Howard playing out of his mind, it very easily could have been 3-0 heading into the second intermission. Detroit may have led 27-15 in shots at that point but every great chance was going to the Ducks.
- A difference between Abdelkader and Mikael Samuelsson: Sammy skates the puck into the zone with some steam, passes off to Datsyuk, and rather than barreling toward the net to create traffic, he darts right for the corner away from everything. Granted, Abdelkader would have laid a flying shoulder block into Jonas Hiller and negated a goal but we can’t split hairs here. Abby pulls pianos, while Sammy is that guy who’s pretending to pull it while four other guys are doing the actual lifting.
- Everyone played hard and junk, but special mention to Patrick Eaves who played his giant hairy balls off.
- Red Wings D-zone coverage in this game was relentlessly and mercilessly awful at times. Looked threatening in the Ducks end but lord almighty, transition defense was a total adventure. Anyone out there who doesn’t appreciate every last tiny molecule of Jimmy Howard is dead to me.
- I’d say something holier than thou about our crowd chanting “BULL-SHIT” every 10 minutes and begging for every call but I spent one season in the student section at Michigan State football games so ehhh.
- Had they lost this one, it wouldn’t have been for a lack of trying. And had they lost, I would’ve mandated that anyone complaining in the comments about a lack of heart be required to post their credit card information before saying anything. I feel like lazy analysis for insane risk to your financial security is a fair trade.
- Things really were not looking great after the Ducks went ahead midway through the 3rd. Brian Lashoff missed his check, then ran into Howard trying to recover, and David Steckel made it 2-1. Worse yet, Dan DeKeyser punched his living room wall after this and broke his other thumb.
- But Pavel Datsyuk in the 3rd period, you guys. Holy god. He was not going to let this game end with anything left in the tank. That little move he made to give himself space for that ridiculous snipe …. how good has he been this year? How insanely good? Guys are supposed to decline by this point in their careers and he’s still making people look stupid and picking off water bottles. There aren’t enough words.
- And Damien Brunner. He played the fewest minutes of anyone on either team, but was right where he needed to be when he tied the series. The rookies involved in the game-winner: Brian Lashoff cleared the net to cancel out a Ducks scoring chance; Joakim Andersson with the lead pass to Gustav Nyquist, who out-skated everyone to cause hell in front of Hiller; and Brunner banged it in for the win.
2-2. Go Wings.
