Red Wings Battle Avalanche this afternoon
Today’s game is on NBC and starts early at 12:30pm eastern time. Kuklas Korner has all of the pertinent details on the broadcast. I get Eddie Olczyk again, who broadcasts Blackhawk games that are actually on television for Comcast Sports Net.
Matt over at On the Wings has his Gameday post up. He points out that the Avs are on the outside looking in when it comes to a playoff spot:
The Avs are currently in 9th place in the Conference, 10 points behind Calgary for that last playoff spot. Their chances diminish with every loss, as they need a 14-3-0 record between now and the end of the season if they want to hit the 95 point mark, which is a likely minimum for making the playoffs.
A thread over at Hockey’s Future ponders whether Jiri Hudler is the best Czech midget in the NHL. George Sipple at the Free Press reports that Hudler is a welcome addition to the Grind Line.
Might Hudler draw consideration as member of the Grind Line? “Yeah, I don’t know if he’s going to make the T-shirt or not, but we’ll see,” [Red Wings center Kris] Draper said.
Drapes has a unique way to make guys feel welcome, doesn’t he? Maybe Red Wings authentics can do a new commercial that features Hudler hiding behind a rack of clothing. When the customer asks if the gear comes with a certificate of authenticity Jiri can come out from the clothes rack and say “I wore it. It just doesn’t have any pit stains or anything because I only play a little under 7 minutes a night, alright?”
Jiri Hudler drives the lane during a little people basketball game
Helene St. James talked to Todd Bertuzzi’s former linemate Markus Naslund to see what he had to say about Bert. Naslund spoke highly of Bertuzzi.
“He was unreal when he was here in Vancouver,” Naslund said. “He might be the most exciting player they’ve seen here, even more so than Pavel Bure and Alexander Mogilny. He brings so much more than scoring, because he can hit and make plays. He’s definitely fun to watch.”
St. James touches on the trade that sent Bertuzzi from the New York Islanders to Vancouver and on Mike Keenan giving him 20 minutes a night on a top line for the Canucks to develop his game. It’s a longer article and is a good read.
Bruce MacLeod of the Macomb Daily created this thread over at Red Wings Central where he looks at how many penalties each player has drawn and how many they have taken. Henrik Zetterberg was a natural to make the top of the list in terms of drawing many more penalties than he takes. The next highest plus rating went to…Kirk Maltby?
Sure did. Maltby’s game has always included him being an agitator, as well as a dart board for pucks that he attempts to block. MacLeod followed up this post with an article on the topic. Here is part of what he has to say.
A close second to Zetterberg…is Kirk Maltby with 33 created power plays. Maltby…[is] a thorn in the side that gets opponents off their game. Maltby created his 33rd power play Friday shortly after decking Chicago’s Danny Richmond with a clean body check. On the ensuing Detroit rush, Maltby was cross checked and the Red Wings were given a man-advantage.
I’ve been fairly critical of Maltby’s game in my player grades as his plus/minus has dropped off quite a bit over the past two years. But this is a really impressive stat that I think gives you a great way to measure Matlby’s effectiveness. MacLeod makes a great case for using stats like these as opposed to tracking shooting percentage.
The Ann Arbor News/MLIVE and the Free Press have articles on the resurgence of the Robert Lang line. I went over this in some detail in game recaps from the games on Friday and Tuesday.
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