Gorilla Crouch

Giguere goes fishing while Detroit celebrates
Photo: Jeff Gross - Getty Images

I’m sure the Anaheim faithful will have an explanation for why they should be up 3 games to none in the Western Conference Finals. The refrain that was heard after the first two games was that the Ducks should have been up 2 games to none heading to their arena. The Wings made a reasonably good case to have won Game 3 fair and square when Dominik Hasek shut out Anaheim en route to a 5-0 Detroit win. The ledger reads that Detroit is up two games to one in the best of seven series.

Tomas Holmstrom sparked the Wings by scoring two goals and registering a helper. He was so effective that he drew a 5:00 penalty on Rob Niedermayer when he went headhunting to try and knock Holmstrom out of the game after he scored his second goal. Niedermayer was assesed a game misconduct and was removed for the remainder of the contest. Homer missed the extended power play while he was getting stitched up but he returned to notch his assist on Valtteri Filppula’s goal at the 10:58 mark of the third period to close out the scoring.




Wings coach Mike Babcock said the team needed to do a better job playing at even-strength. He juggled his lines and the end result was highly effective: Detroit scored four goals while playing with five skaters a side. The other goal came on the power play during the second period when Anaheim completely lost composure and took five penalties. It’s one of the risks of their gameplan to push the envelope in terms of physical play.

It looked like Babcock double-shifted his best forwards. Here are some of the lines I noticed during the game:

Pavel Datsyuk - Henrik Zetterberg - Tomas Holmstrom
Johan Franzen - Henrik Zetterberg - Mikael Samuelsson
Valtteri Filppula - Pavel Datsyuk - Tomas Holmstrom

As I mentioned in my preview of the series, Detroit has the advantage at forward. By playing Datsyuk and Zetterberg on three lines it makes it more difficult for Sammy Pahlson to match up against them. It worked: Datsyuk went +2 and had an assist; Zetterberg notched two assists and went +1. Scott Niedermayer had a rough game after scoring the game-winner in the game on Sunday night. He went -3 and didn’t register a shot on goal.

With the game in hand by early in the second period, Nick Lidstrom skated just under 30:00. Chris Chelios was Detroit’s only other defensemen to register more than 20 minutes of ice time as he was on the ice for 23:00. So their rearguards should be in good shape going forward in this series.

Jean Sebastien Giguere was removed from the contest after Detroit scored their third goal at the 3:17 mark of the second period. That goal came when Dan Cleary’s centering pass hit Todd Bertuzzi’s stick before it bounced off his leg and went into the net. Bert was credited with the goal. Johan Franzen scored the first goal at the 11:09 mark of the first period off a nice pass from Mikael Samuelsson. Tomas Holmstrom scored the second goal at the 19:17 mark of the opening period when he wristed a shot from near the right faceoff circle that beat Giguere on his blocker side.

Tomas Kopecky had a mixed game in his first action since early in the season. He took two penalties but was physical, despite not being credited with a hit in the game. He skated a team low 7:05 amongst the forwards. Detroit has reclaimed home ice with the win and will have a chance to put themselves in the driver’s seat if they can pull out a win in Game 4 on Thursday night.

Anaheim Ducks Chris Pronger Dominik Hasek Johan Franzen NHL Playoffs Red Wings Rob Niedermayer Todd Bertuzzi Tomas Holmstrom Valtteri Filppula

May 15th, 2007
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave

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