x

Already member? Login first!

Comments / New

Bert and Earning His First NHL Goal: Detroit Dominates Chicago 4-0.

Posted on by Pete Flynn

Well, yesterday’s game was not very fun. Here’s hoping that the Red Wings can play better than yesterday. Although it’s already not fun because Mike Milbury is on my television.

Dominic Turgeon makes his debut today, centering a line with Luke Witkowski and David Booth. It’s a good thing that Turgeon isn’t known for providing offense, so he won’t be in as huge a hole as he would otherwise be in terms of making an impression.

Mantha is starting the game back on the top line, so I’ll be interested to see if he plays better than he has of late. He’s been mostly invisible, and it’s not hard to link that to his recent “lingering” injury. Here’s hoping he’ll make an impact today.

Mrazek is in net today for Detroit. Just like Mantha, I’m hoping that he has a bounce back game.

First Period

Get well soon shoutout to Pierre McGuire, who is recovering from prostate cancer surgery.

Detroit gets the first chance of the game with Mantha feeding Nyquist, but they don’t convert.

The opening to this game is MUCH better than yesterday’s game. Turgeon makes his debut.

GOAL!!!

Athanasiou’s speed allows him to beat his man to the outside and gets the puck to Larkin in the slot, and 71 bangs it home for the first goal of the game. 1-0 Good guys.

GOAL!!!

I said at the top that Mantha has been invisible, but he’s been very effective today already. He feeds the puck to Mike Green at the point, who beats Glass 2:10 after Larkin scored. Detroit is up 2-0 before the first TV timeout.

Turgeon blocks a shot from the point on a delayed penalty against Detroit. It looks like the shot stung him, so we’ll have to keep an eye on him. Jonathan Ericsson will go to the box for interference at the 11:29 mark of the first.

The forward PP unit of Toews, Kane, and Duclair have some good zone time, but Detroit’s defense holds strong. The Wings kill the power play. As the man advantage expires, Chicago gets a good chance, but Mrazek keeps it out. Mrazek still looks like he’s over-reacting in goal, which we’ve seen in the past could get him out of position.

Turgeon is in the locker room. It sounds like that shot I mentioned above hit his wrist. Hopefully, he’ll return.

Lauren let me know about this glorious Dylan Larkin promo video:

Brandon Saad takes a penalty for knocking the stick out of Mike Green’s hands, so he goes for slashing. Just before, Mantha had another strong play. He clearly read my call out at the beginning of this article.

Detroit makes it through another power play with zero shots. That’s not ideal.

At the end of the first period, Detroit is up 2-0. That’s obviously pretty good, but hopefully their missed chances won’t come back to haunt them.

Second Period

Turgeon is back for the second period, which is obviously great to see.

Daley had a nice look for a breaking Athanasiou, but the difficult pass JUST didn’t connect. Athanasiou’s speed draws a penalty later that same shift, when Forsling slashed the stick out of AA’s hands.

The Zetterberg unit doesn’t get set up in the zone, and the second unit comes on.

They put more pressure on Chicago than the first unit, but not enough to score, and Chicago kills the penalty.

Chicago is increasing the pressure on Detroit, and the Red Wings have to increase their play as well, which hasn’t happened yet.

Mrazek hasn’t had nearly the chances against that Howard saw yesterday, but he’s played well overall with the shots he’s faced. I’d like to see him look more calm in the net, though.

Larkin’s speed draws another penalty and forces Schmaltz to take him down. Detroit goes to another power play.

With Abdelkader out, Mantha is in the net front position for the first unit. The problem again, as it has been for a long time is they don’t move the puck quickly enough. When you have Kronwall on the point, that’s a problem.

Frk gets off two one-timers from the point on the second unit, but the first is blocked, and the second goes well off-net.

Mantha bulldozes his way into the zone with 7:42 left, but Glass makes a really nice glove save to keep the deficit at 2.

Athanasiou takes a hooking penalty in the offensive zone. That’s a really bad penalty that AA can’t be taking. (And neither can anyone else).

Toews takes a penalty in the offensive zone on the power play, which negates the last minute of the Chicago man advantage.

Oh geez!!! Nyquist slices throught the defense, but can’t bank it off Glass’ skate. He then gets it to Zetterberg, who somehow can’t put it home from five feet out.

They review it, but there’s no camera angle that shows the puck in the net. Zetterberg dove after the rebound, so he could clearly see where it was, but there’s no evidence at all to overturn the call on the ice.

With 1:33 left in the period Mrazek stops Duclair and covers.

The period ends with Detroit still up 2-0. Chicago had a period of time during the second where it got scary, but Detroit has been the better team overall so far.

Third Period

Tomas Tatar takes a hooking penalty early in the period to open the door to Chicago to get back into the game.

Chicago has nothing brewing on the power play, and the Chicago fans are beginning to boo. Or maybe they are saying “Booo-Kane is a horrible human being.” That could just be in my head, to be fair.

GOAL!!!!

Zetterberg hears Mantha coming off the bench and drops the puck to the young player, who snipes a beauty past Glass. 3-0 Red Wings.

Detroit is in the driver’s seat as long as they don’t lay back. The 4th line has a good shift where they get a few scoring chances and keep the puck away from their own zone.

Man, Mantha nearly scored again as Zetterberg fed a beauty of a cross-ice feed to him for a tip in front of the goal. I thought for sure that was a goal, but Mantha’s re-direction hit the post.

GOAL!!!!!!

TYLER BERTUZZI with his first NHL goal!!!!!!!

Frk passes to Jensen, who gets it to Bert who puts the puck through Glass’ pads to make it 4-0.

Man, what a difference a day makes. As much as Detroit was dominated yesterday, they dominated Chicago today. The final is 4-0, and we can all enjoy the rest of our day!

Thanks for reading, and let’s go Red Wings!

Winging It In Motown Logo
If you enjoyed this article please consider supporting Winging It In Motown by subscribing here, or purchasing our merchandise here.

Looking for an easy way to support Winging It In Motown? Use our Affiliate Link when shopping hockey merch.

Talking Points