Reactions to Game One
Earl Sleek at Battle of California has a funny picture from the Red Wings’ playbook that he purports is Mike Babcock’s shooting guide. Those Red Wings scores last night definitely weren’t pretty, tic tac toe goals. The positive going forward for the Red Wings is that Anaheim was the most penalized team in the NHL. Mike Babcock alluded to that in his press conference following the game. The Ducks are going to walk a fine line of being physical, which gives them the best chance at winning the series, without going overboard and taking penalties. Last night Detroit went 2-4 on the power play.
Ryan Getzlaf commented on how the Ducks had a rare advantage in terms of power play opportunities last night. This quote is from Scott Burnside’s ESPN article:
“I think this is one of the first games that we had more power plays than penalty kills probably.”
As I mentioned last night, Detroit coach Mike Babcock wasn’t happy with his team’s effort. This quote is also from Burnside’s ESPN article:
“Yeah, I mean if we play like we did tonight and [don’t] get after them the whole series, that could be a concern for us,” he said. “But I’m not concerned. I thought we had better play in the third period. I think we’ll get our legs and I think we’ll get jumping here. We have to play with more tempo, which I think we will.”
I think we’ll have a better handle on how both teams look during Game Two. If Anaheim controls the tempo, which Ansar Khan from MLIVE wrote about in this blog entry, it is going to be a very good sign for them. If Detroit can play with a quicker tempo that will obviously bode well for them. As I mentioned in my preview, I expect this to be a low-scoring series. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bulk of the games have 2-1 scores. Detroit broke a team record from 1952 when for the 9th straight playoff game they held an opponent to two or fewer goals. But if Detroit spends as much time on the PK - particularly playing 3on5 or 3on4 - it will really make life difficult for them. This quote is from Helene St. James’ Free Press article:
What really killed the Ducks was Detroit’s penalty killing. From nullifying nearly two minutes when the Ducks were up two men to a 4-on-3, the Wings held Anaheim 0-for-7.
“It takes a lot out of you,” Lidstrom said. “Our rotations aren’t the way we want them to be with our forward lines, same with our defense pairings. It’s tiring.”
Ted Kulfan at the Detroit News has an article on Detroit’s top penalty killer.
It…[helped that] goalie Dominik Hasek was arguably the Wings’ best penalty killer.
“They have so many dangerous guys over there,” forward Kris Draper said. “We were getting in the way of their shots as much as we could, but Dom, he was just unbelievable.”
Hasek ranks second only to Martin Brodeur in playoff goals against average for any goaltender who has played at least 100 playoff games. Hasek has a 1.97 GAA, which trails Brodeur by 0.04 GAA. Henrik Zetterberg continues to improve his game as the playoffs continue. He commented that he thought he had his best game thus far in the Kulfan article I linked above.
“The more you play, the more you get back in game shape. Timing-wise it gets better,” Zetterberg said. “It gets better with every game. Conditioning-wise, I feel good. It was a good game [for me] today.”
While his faceoff percentage wasn’t stellar, he did win the faceoff on Detroit’s first power play that resulted in him scoring the first goal of the game.
Anaheim Duck Fan was pleased with the effort the Ducks put forth and has some keys for Game Two. On the Pond commented on the excellent goaltending both teams displayed and how this looks to be a low-scoring series.
This isn’t Red Wings related but Christy at Behind the Jersey has an article on the Plymouth Whalers game last night. The Whalers won in overtime but the most impressive thing about this game is that Plymouth put EIGHTY ONE shots on goal! That is just sick. Steph over at No Pun Intended has her writeup on the Red Wings and Tigers. Her writeup includes her shouting obscenities at Chris Pronger. Works for me…Matt at On the Wings has his writeup on the game posted.
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