Toronto is always fun, right? All the hype, controversy, and nitpicking by the media. Two of the Eastern Conference’s most smoke & mirrors teams going head-to-head, trying to relive the glory days when the rivalry was heated, and competitive. Tonight was pretty much everything but that. Detroit looked tired, and just could not create enough quality scoring chances to put this one away.
1st Period:
Red Wings come out creating some decent chances, but took a lot of unneeded penalties. Johan Franzen served two of them, which is bad. Don’t like that. The first tally of the night came in favor of Toronto. Leo Komarov crashed into the net, and pinched one in off Jimmy Howard. Not sure what Jonathan Ericsson was doing, well.. I do know what he was doing. He was covering the open side of the net but the problem is, no one was there, so he caught himself trying to stop Komarov after he had already gotten the chance to shoot. Same thing happened with the Ryan Getzlaf goal. It is what it is, but the Red Wings look sloppy in their own zone. Not a good formula against a team who pressures heavily on the forecheck like Toronto. That being said, Jimmy Howard made a spectacular back-to-back save on Nazem Kadri. Thanks to him, and the goal-post, the first ended at 1-0.
2nd Period:
Period looked a lot like the first.. Shots in favor of Detroit, big saves by both goalies. Daniel Cleary set up a huge chance for Tomas Jurco, but Jonathan Bernier came up with a big save to keep it 1-0. Detroit had a nice comeback goal from Tomas Tatar on a feed from Xavier Ouellet. Congrats to him on his first NHL point. Hopefully many more to come. Period ends at 1-1.
3rd Period:
I had a feeling the Wings would come out with guns blazing, and put this game away. I was completely wrong. It was a titanic mess of a period. Toronto took the lead on a short-handed goal. The break was due to an awful play by Gustav Nyquist, who had an absolutely abysmal night. Fast forward, and the Wings lose this game 4-1. They absolutely deserve this loss, because they played terribly.
The Wings handled possession quite well tonight, despite the loss. But in the end, that really doesn’t matter to me. Seems like they just couldn’t put it in the net. Some nights you have it, and some nights you don’t. Tonight, we didn’t. Oh well, Toronto can go along with their rainbows and unicorns and gripe more about how Nazem Kadri is better than Tyler Bozak, blah blah blah. Next game is Monday against Ottawa. Detroit hasn’t been able to create any momentum with winning streaks so far this year, so I’m hoping for the return of Pavel Datsyuk soon. Also, is Jakub Kindl alive? Can someone send an email to the Diggers? Good chance we see Stephen Weiss return as well. He’s scored two goals at the AHL level, which is as many goals as he has had with Detroit in the past, like, two years. Or something. Hope he can bring that to the NHL, but I won’t hold my breath just yet. Goodnight, folks. And as always, LGRW.
P.S.- KILL THE NEUTRAL ZONE DROP-PASS WITH FIRE
How did you feel about this game?
| Just one game, no worries. | 71 |
| Awful. Play better! | 93 |
| Everything hurts. | 45 |
