Ken Holland Happy with 1st Round Performance
Ansar Khan reports that the guy who runs the organization likes what he saw from the Red Wings.
“We faced a lot of challenges,” Holland said. “We learned patience. We attacked, but we took care of our own zone. And when you have a guy like Dom back there you know you can afford some breakdowns. Dom is in full playoff mode. The other thing I liked was we had scoring from all four lines.”
Yep, here is how the scoring broke down for Detroit’s lines:
Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Holmstrom line: 5 goals
Franzen-Lang-Bertuzzi line: 4 goals
Cleary-Draper-Matlby line: 3 goals
Samuelsson-Filppula-Hudler/Calder line: 2 goals
Red Wings fans are weary about playing San Jose, so many were pulling for Dallas to win their game last night against Vancouver. Why are Wings fans nervous about playing the Sharks? First, let’s take a look at the head to head record. San Jose has won 3 games and lost 1 game to the Red Wings.
Oct 19: @San Jose 5, Detroit 1
Oct 25: @Detroit 2, San Jose 1
Dec 2: San Jose 3, @Detroit 2
Jan 4: @San Jose 9, Detroit 4
Both games at Detroit were closely played, with each team winning by one goal in low scoring games. But San Jose completely dominated play at HP Pavilion, due in large part to their power play:
October 19 - San Jose goes 5-13 on the power play
January 4 - San Jose goes 6-9 on the power play
Given how much Detroit struggled on the power play in games 3 and 4 in round one, there is certainly reason to be concerned about how well they will do killing penalties, particularly in San Jose. On the other hand, Nashville largely contained San Jose’s power play in round one. The Sharks are currently ranked 15th amongst playoff teams with a 6.7% conversion rate. More importantly, the Sharks didn’t score a single goal with the man advantage while playing at home in that series.
James Mirtle has a good look at the U.S. team that will play in the World Championships that start on Friday. It is a very young team. I was hoping Rick DiPietro was sufficiently recovered from his concussion to backstop the club but Jason Bacashihua has been added to the team. I like Bacashihua although he is obviously very light on experience.
Finally, check out this nice piece of work from Mike Chen.
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