No need for bigger boat as Wings carve up Sharks
Detroit’s firepower waylaid the Sharks
This week James Mirtle wrote about the average size of each team in the NHL. We all know the Wings are the oldest team [and are assured to remain so with the re-signings of Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby]. But it turns out they’re also the smallest and lightest. The Sharks, conversely, are the heaviest and the second biggest team in the league.
That size didn’t make much difference tonight as the Red Wings pasted a Sharks team that is coming off a short respite in Banff. Valtteri Filppula, who’s shown some offensive instincts but hadn’t capitalized on them, scored the opening goal at 1:23 of the opening period and set up Andrea Lilja’s game-winning goal 14:08 later en route to Detroit building up a 5-0 lead before defeating San Jose 5-1.
Nabby looked back to see the puck kick back out of his net quite often
AP Photo: Carlos Osorio
The Sharks made an effort to use their size, and they particularly seemed to focus on forechecking Brian Rafalski. Tomas Kopecky was pretty good about laying the body along the boards for Detroit and delivered some solid hits. The Wings created several scoring chances in the first period and were rewarded with a bizarre 4:00 power play. It looked like they should have had a 2-man advantage for 2:00 but instead Joe Thornton was sent to the box for four minutes. It would be the start of what was a very undisciplined game for Thornton. Detroit wouldn’t capitalize on the power play and the Wings held a 2-0 lead early in the second period.
Rob Davison went after Aaron Downey in an attempt to generate some momentum for a San Jose team that couldn’t get anything started. Downey held off on fighting him as there was no real need from Detroit’s perspective. But after Davison had been belligerent enough to be hit with an additional two minute penalty to give the Red Wings the man advantage Downey conceded and fought Davison. It looked like a draw as both players landed some solid shots.
The fight didn’t seem to motivate the Sharks much as they only put three shots on net during the second period, which matched their woeful production from the first period. After the first two periods Detroit outshot San Jose 22-6 and maintained their 2-0 lead. They had a great chance to build on that lead late in the second period when Niklas Kronvall made a great pass from the blueline to Jiri Hudler who was stationed right in front of the net. But Evgeni Nabakov made a fine stop to keep the Sharks within two goals of Detroit, which was impressive considering how much Detroit carried play early on.
The Red Wings power play wasn’t very effective early on as they looked like they tried largely to dump the puck to gain the zone. They had six power plays and didn’t convert one of them. But that’s okay when you score five even-strength goals. Detroit broke this game open in the third. Team captain Nick Lidstrom put a shot on net less than one minute into the period and the puck deflected directly to Tomas Holmstrom. He easily potted the goal as Nabakov vacated the net to cut down the angle on Lidstrom’s shot. That goal put Detroit up 3-0.
The Wings would pad their lead about 7:30 later as Pavel Datsyuk took the puck to the net and drew two defenders to him. He made a nifty back-hand pass to Henrik Zetterberg who put the puck past Nabakov to build a 4-0 lead. After that goal San Jose head coach Ron Wilson pulled Nabakov and replaced him with Dimitri Patzold. Patzold would surrender a goal on the first shot he faced as Kris Draper’s shot on net carromed to Kirk Maltby who was able to re-direct the puck into the goal to provide Detroit with a 5-0 lead.
Tomas Holmstrom nearly helped Detroit build a 6-0 lead as he screened Patzold on Henrik Zetterber’s shot at the 13:10 mark. Z’s shot found the back of the net but the officials waived it off and sent Holmstrom to the box for goalie interference. San Jose would score their lone goal on the power play and would spoil Chris Osgood’s bid for a shutout. Ozzie has been very good so far and tonight was no different although he had a light workload. Osgood stopped 10 of 11 shots for a .909 save percentage.
With the win the Wings move into first place in total points in both the Western Conference and the NHL. They’ve scored 40 goals which is second only to Toronto and allowed 27 goals, which is a bit high. Detroit now heads out west again for a three-game road trip against Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary.
Andreas Lilja Henrik Zetterberg Kirk Maltby Red Wings San Jose Sharks Tomas Holmstrom Valtteri Filppula3 Comments
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