Gorilla Crouch

Mike Babcock clearly has a plan for improving Detroit’s play in the playoffs. Will it work? We will have to wait and see. But so far his team is showing some signs of toughness and resiliency and that has to make you think those traits will be important come playoff time.

George Sipple - Detroit News: Zetterberg Caps Rally

Red Wings coach Mike Babcock was ecstatic over the way his team battled back for a 4-3 overtime victory over the New York Islanders on Tuesday night at the Nassau Coliseum.

“A lot of people get caught up in toughness,” Babcock said. “Toughness, in my opinion, is just what’s between your ears. How bad you want to keep playing. When teams are running at you, you just stay patient and execute and find a way to be successful. That’s what we did. We just stuck to it. We had some guys really dig in and found a way to fight our way back.”
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“We weren’t ready to engage in the physical part at the start, and they backed us off,” said Babcock. “You know, that’s what teams think they can do to us at playoff time. That’s not going to happen this year. … We’re working on that every single day, and we’re going to continue to work on that. So, tonight’s game was real good for our hockey team.”

Bill over at Abel to Yzerman isn’t the only one who refers to Nick Lidstrom by a certain nickname:

Ansar Khan - MLIVE.com: Wings Rally from 3 down to beat the Islanders

Hard-luck defenseman Niklas Kronwall scored his first goal of the season at 3:24 to ignite the third-period rally. Dan Cleary (his 19th at 4:57) and Tomas Holmstrom (his 16th at 10:12) also scored for Detroit, setting up the brilliant game-winner by Zetterberg, his 20th. Nicklas Lidstrom (three assists) did the hard part, knocking the puck down with his left glove during a rush, retrieving it and making a great cross-ice pass to a trailing Zetterberg, who fired a shot past Islanders goaltender Rick DiPietro.

“I grabbed it with my glove and kept skating and I heard Hank calling for the puck,” Lidstrom said. “I didn’t have much to shoot at, that’s why I tried to (pass) it back as DiPietro came out and played the angle great.”

Said Zetterberg: “He’s an All-Star, so he can do that.”

Said Babcock: “We call him Norris (as in Trophy) and that’s just the way he is.”

Call Wings goalie Dominik Hasek borderline giddy after this one. He wanted it badly.

Mike Babcock was pleased with the way the team responded to New York’s physical play. It resulted in a rare road win:

Ted Kulfan - Detroit News: Wings Finally grab Road Win

The victory ended a three-game losing streak (0-2-1) on the road for the Wings. In their last nine away from Joe Louis Arena, the Wings are 3-5-1. For the season, the Wings are 14-12-3 on the road.

“This was a great game,” Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. “I liked the fact they ran us early, and we responded. I liked that.”

The coach also held Mathieu Schneider out of the game, the idea being to make sure he is fully recovered from his knee injury and will be ready to go for the tail end of the season. The blurb is also from Kulfan’s article: