This game was stupid. I don’t want to talk about it. But because I love you all here on this blog of ours, I suffered through sixty painful minutes to write a recap no one’s going to want to read more than once because they’ll want to completely forget this game existed. Here’s how it all went down.
First Period:
The Red Wings started the game off with a big opportunity when Henrik Zetterberg drew a high-sticking double minor only 0:50 into the game. Unfortunately they quickly wasted the first penalty and then the second. Then with 23 seconds left Jacob Trouba scored a short-handed goal. 1-0 home team. Then the Jets pulled a Red Wings and took a too many men penalty, but the Jets’ penalty killers again didn’t let Detroit get anything near a goal. Henrik Zetterberg returned to the game after getting cut just in time to sit on the bench longer while the Wings’ PKers got to work. Then Kronwall took a stupid penalty while already short-handed to put his team down another defenseman.
Andrew Ladd scored on the 5-on-3 to make it 2-0, so they stayed on the power play after the goal. Fortunately the Wings were able to kill off the rest of the Kronwall penalty. Brendan Smith had a chance in after a lead pass from Zetterberg, but couldn’t get the puck past Connor Hellebuyck (who I just realized was the goalie for Winnipeg tonight, since he didn’t have much to do so far to get mentioned). Oh yeah, the Wings got another power play opportunity as the period wound down. I’ll let you guess what happened on the man advantage.
Score: 2-0 Winnipeg
Shots: 12-7 Detroit
Standout Players: Nosek
Tough Period: Literally everyone else
Second Period:
I don’t really have much to say for nearly the first five minutes of this period. Alexander Burmistrov scored to make it 3-0 and that’s about all I’ve got. Darren Helm broke his stick on a shot that basically summed up the team’s attempts at offense. Trouba made it 4-0 with a shot through a screen nearly 12 minutes in, and Petr Mrazek came in for relief in Howard’s second straight start.
The Bronx cheers continued with Mrazek in net as he turned away the Jets’ attacks. Then Darren Helm had a breakaway on a pass from Richards that ended with him basically standing on top of Hellebuyck and jamming the puck against his pads. He ended up drawing a cross-checking penalty from Byfuglien, which ended as you would expect.
Score: 4-0 Winnipeg
Shots: 24-17 Detroit
Standout Players: Mrazek I guess?
Tough Period: The players in white
Third Period:
Oh look, another Red Wings power play. Oh look, a Red Wings power play goal! Datsyuk placed a perfect shot through traffic to break Hellebuyck’s 100-minute shutout streak and finally get his team on the board, still trailing 4-1. I thought Blake Wheeler had gotten the Jets’ four-goal lead back but he blew the puck wide of an empty net.
Riley Sheahan was hurt on the bench for a bit and then I remembered that Andreas Athanasiou sat out tonight for Grand Rapids with a mysterious lower body injury suffered in practice this morning and got way more worried. He seemed to be okay later when he was out with Tatar and Jurco as the latter Tomas had a great individual effort to steal the puck away along the boards and maneuver his way into a good scoring chance. Then the other Slovak Tomas danced himself into the slot from the blue line, only to rip the shot wide.
The Wings thought they had another power play opportunity, but Smith got called for embellishment. Datsyuk had a breakaway chance that was hurried and his shot was easily saved by Hellebuyck. The Wings weren’t able to generate much more for chances the rest of the game, and I was glad that Blashill didn’t bother pulling Mrazek, because I feel like somehow the Jets would have scored two empty netters on one shot.
Score: 4-1 Winnipeg
Shots: 34-25 Detroit
Standout Players: Jurco, Mrazek
Tough Period: The team from Michigan
Final Thoughts:
- The writers at WIIM recently (read: yesterday) had a discussion about the nature of the Red Wings penalty killing strategy and how it generally doesn’t lend to trying for short-handed goals. To then see the Jets score a SHG tonight added a little extra insult to the captain’s injury.
- Holy shit, Z’s injury. Glad he came back from getting stitched up but I’m thinking they need to be careful of him flying, because if that swells up enough he won’t be able to see out of that right eye. He looked feisty late in the game, at least.
- The Wings looked afraid of the puck tonight.
- I thought there was too much deferring to Datsyuk early on, which is a problem when Datsyuk hasn’t been able to do Datsyuk things lately./
- Tomas Jurco looks more confident, eh?
- Jimmy Howard got pulled for his second consecutive start. I know I mentioned that earlier in the recap, but I think it bears repeating.
- No player of the game tonight. They didn’t deserve my love, and that needs to be earned./
