Wings squeak past Oil 2-1
Another game, another young gun pots a game-winner
Most of last night’s game was a battle fought at close quarters. Neither team gave up much open ice. The Wings as usual outshot their opponent by a large margin. But the majority of those shots were perimeter shots that weren’t great scoring chances.
Detroit took the lead when their top power play unit scored at the 4:00 mark of the second period. Tomas Kopecky drew a tripping penalty to give the Wings the man advantage. Nick Lidstrom set up the marker as he worked near the halfboards. The move from his usual spot on the left point ended up being a good decision as he was able to find Henrik Zetterberg near the right faceoff circle. Z blasted the shot past Dwayne Roloson. That goal tied him with former Wolverine Mike Cammalleri for the league lead with 10 goals apiece.
The Oil would respond a little over ten seconds later when Steve Staios launched a shot off a faceoff win that looked like it changed direction once or twice. If it was redirected it must have been Detroit players who touched the puck as Staios was credited with the goal to knot the game at one.
Both netminders were sharp. Roloson was awarded the game’s #1 star while Osgood was named the #3 star. Osgood had one particularly sharp save as a Brett Lebda penalty expired during the second period. The goals all came on tough shots. Johan Franzen played pretty well last night as he started out on the fourth line and got some shifts on the second line alongside Filppula and Samuelsson.
The game started to break open right around the second half of the third period. Dan Cleary got on his horse on the breakout and generated two good rushes to the Edmonton goal. Neither resulted in great scoring chances but it was one of the few times a player had open ice in front of him and a similar rush would generate the game winner.
Edmonton also generated some sustained pressure in the Detroit zone late in the game. They started to push a bit and that’s when a Red Wings counter-punch resulted in the knockout blow. Pavel Datsyuk gained control of the puck in the defensive zone and hit Valtteri Filppula on a nice breakout pass. Fil’s speed flummoxed Dick Tarnstrom as he stumbled badly to position himself for Filppula’s rush into the offensive zone. The second-line center put a nice move on Tarnstrom to gain inside position and quickly wristed a shot that beat Roloson low gloveside before carroming out of the net near the opposite post.
Several Detroit Red Wings defenders are near the top of the rankings for defensive play that James Mirtle posted. Some are obvious, such as Nick Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski both being ranked in the top 10. According to the number crunching Brett Lebda is right behind them at #10. In the NHL? That’s how it looks.
The data requires a little knowledge of each player’s role. Lids and Rafi play on the top unit and play in excess of 25 minutes per night, so their stats are legit. Lebda has performed very well of late on the third pairing alongside Chris Chelios. I took a brief look at his improved play in this post.
Brett Lebda, after starting off slowly, has started to play well. In the first six games he was -2. Over the last five games he’s +8 at even-strength. Lebda hasn’t been on the ice for a goal against since the Calgary game. He’s been paired mostly with Cheli but has also gotten ice time with Brian Rafalski and Niklas Kronvall. I’ve been critical early on of Lebda’s play but he’s been very good of late, which bodes well for the Red Wings.
So he’s clearly a good fit as the #6 d-man. Over the past two games with Nik Kronwall out of the lineup he’s been paired with Andreas Lilja and they’ve both gone -1 over those two games. I’m not sure about playing Lebda on a second pairing for a significant stretch, although it would be interesting to see him paired up with Kronner.
Speaking of Lilja, he is the top ranked D-man when it comes to most minutes played on the PK without allowing a goal. Again, he’s not on Detroit’s top PK unit so the data could lead you to think Lilja should be playing on the top PK unit. The truth, as is the case with Lebda, is that he’s a pretty good role player.
At any rate, the Wings are guaranteed a series win on this west coast tilt. They can go for the sweep on Thursday when they play the Flames.
Edmonton Oilers Henrik Zetterberg Red Wings Valtteri Filppula1 Comment(s)
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[…] Okay, I don’t have a recap of the game today. I didn’t take notes, and we were driving back from Holland during the third period. Basically, I remember it being very tightly-contested and that Henrik Zetterberg’s goal was sweet. For a recap, check out Dave’s at Gorilla Crouch. If you’re looking for entertainment, read the comments over at Abel to Yzerman’s liveblog post. […]