Red Wings @ Wild

VICTORY

4 : Detroit Red Wings @ Minnesota Wild : 1

We're gonna lose another Red Wing to injury this game. Prepare yourself.

Some Notes From The Game:

On the original viewing there was a little blurb during an intermission about the hidden talents of the Red Wings. Didn't catch it again on the recap viewing as I had to use the Wild feed in the archive, but I took some notes on the first go.

Cleary: watching TV. he's seen everything out there

Bertuzzi : his wife would say dancing. Bertuzzi admits it may depend on who's watching

Eaves : ping pong master (I wonder if he plays with Ken Holland, who is also a ping pong master)

Miller : can juggle 'decent'. no more than 3 balls, however

Zetterberg : pretty good cook

Ozzie: he can draw. really. he draws pictures and lets his kids color them in

Nick: tennis. he's got mad skills. He beats Holmstrom all the time

Huds: can make a mean BBQ

Helm: can walk on his hands - and can do the worm

Yeah. It was kinda funny.

The announcers start off by noting that the Wild are in their Green jerseys, and the Wings are in their Red jerseys. How... Christmas-y....

The First Period:

There's a hold your breath moment in the offensive end with a fun rebound, but no joy by Cleary and Filppula.

A Wild hooks Zetterberg while backchecking, drawing a penalty.

Not an obvious hook at all

Power play time, bitches.

Our PP sits at 9th and their PK at 17th. Hmm...

Nothing much at the start. A puck rolls across the crease, and had the right winger been standing right there it would have been an easy goal into a wide open net, but there's nobody there for some odd reason (I'm not gonna name names).

Wild captain clears.

The Wild announcers make some notes on Homer, Toddzilla, and Franzen's annoying net-front presence.

No scoring on the power play.

A Wild completely trips Holmstrom in the crease. And then Homer gets into a shoving match with a Wild who rips his helmet off.

No love for Holmstrom

Gonna be some iffy screen caps this round, as the Wild archive video is shoddy and cuts to a black screen with annyoing frequency.

The Holmstrom/Wild scrum in the crease somehow ends up turning into matching penalties for slashing. We head into the 4-on-4.

Nada to be had on that front.

Zetterberg's goal:

Mostly a result of a give-and-go attempt by Kronwall. Kronner at the point gives to Franzen at the left boards and goes in deep, receiving the puck back and slapping it on goal. Zetterberg gets a stick on the rebound and the puck squeezes between the goal post and bounces off Backstrom's pants and in. Lovely.

He even uses your pants against you

To follow this up, Big E heads to the box for interference. Killjoy. Raffi also shoves a Wild into Jimmah for no reason. No penalty there, but it was ridiculous.

Right. Penalty kill time. Our PK is 13th, their PP is 5th.

Nothing much. Eaves gets the first clear. The video cuts out for a few seconds again. Awesome. Stuart makes a final save using his pants and then we clear and move play over to the offensive zone. A lot of pants action this match.

Back and forth hockey for a few minutes.

Cleary's goal:

Filppula has the puck at the right boards. Passes ahead to Cleary, who's going behind the goal. He sends a wrister towards Backstrom as he passes the goal line, and it somehow squeezes between the post and in. Whoops.

Team lead in goals, bitches

On the next faceoff, the Wild have their center kicked out of the circle, and then have his replacement kicked out as well, netting them 2 mins in the box for a face-off violation. Havlat serves. Don't think I've seen that... erm, ever.

Homer nets a goaltender interference penalty a few seconds into the power play, moving us to a 4-on-4.

Sigh...

Filppula pulls off a nice spin-o-rama on an entry. I can feel Toddzilla smiling on the bench.

No action on the 4-on-4.

Video feed crumbles into nothingness. C'mon, NHL...

Nothing until Cleary heads to the box for hooking. I wasn't aware Cleary took penalties.

Penalty kill time. The Wild smack the goal post. I hate that sound. A Wild makes an impressive diving keep-in. There's a miraculous save in the crease. Chaos reigns supreme.

The Wild manage to head to the box for elbowing Ericsson in the face. So we get even more 4-on-4. The Wild announcers seem displeased upon watching the replay, and laughingly state it was actually an 'intent to elbow' penalty.

Nothing on the 4-on-4. We get a brief power play that sees no results.

Some back and forth for the remaining minutes in the period. Cleary gets stoned by Backstrom to set the mood heading to the locker room.

The Second Period:

As the period opens up, I can randomly hear Ken Daniels in the background during the opening music video. Sadness...

My hopes for screencapping this period wane as I lose a solid two minutes of video from the archive. Seriously, NHL? I know you like to keep the home team broadcasts in the archive, but if they suck abysmally... do us all a favor. Seriously. Use the away broadcast. This is awful.

Well, nothing much but back and forth hockey until the Wings notch another one.

Draper's goal:

Big E on the right point passes it to Kronner on the left, who wrists it towards the goal. Draper gets a stick on it mid-air and deflects it in.

Drapes proves he's still kinda useful

Sorry about the shit screen cap. Those dudes at FS Wild are on top of things /sarcasm. At least you can make out the vague shapes of Kronner at the point and Draper with the deflect. Better than nothing, right?

Stuart mucks it up with a Wild off camera. They exchange pleasantries. Come on, Stu, fiiiiiight.

FIGHT MEEEE

Big E heads to the box when he hauls down a Wild on the rush.

There's some fun to be had on this penalty kill, but we manage to be successful. Barely.

Franzen takes a dive into the Wild's bench.

The Wild head to box for shoving Helm face-first into the boards. It didn't look enjoyable. At all.

Not cool

I remember getting a better look at this on the FS Detroit broadcast. I think he walks away with a cut on his nose or something similar, but manages not to break his face.

Holmstrom's goal:

What a beautiful garbage goal.

Lidstrom passes to Zetterberg in neutral (such a nice pass, too) and Zetterberg makes the entry. Zetterberg does some snazzy stick-handling down the center and puts the puck on Backstrom. The rebound sits in the crease, which Homer crashes and manages to tap the puck between his legs as he's falling in an extremely ridiculous move. His stick is beheaded in the effort. Bertuzzi stalks the crease nearby in case there's gold to be dug.

A Holmstrom Classic

As the triumphant five are skating back to the bench for the fist bump there's a nice moment where Lidstrom and Rafalski give each other a little tap with their sticks. Aww....

Nice moves, partner

Helm follows this up with a snazzy copy of Zetterberg's entry when he gets a breakaway. No finish, of course. If this kid learns to score, look out NHL...

The Wild announcers give a lot of love to Holmstom. Well, maybe love is a strong word, but they certainly talk him up. Mostly in a positive light. Mostly.

Cleary nearly makes a few Wilds get embarrassed as he's forechecking. Datsyuk is somewhere smiling right now. I can feel it.

Eaves puts a nice wrister on Backstrom and Abby gets a stick on two consecutive rebounds from that, but no joy. I say unpleasant things to my computer monitor.

The Third Period:

Bertuzzi starts the period by going to the box for holding. Of course.

Some fun is had on the PK, but no scoring. A Wild has a few choice words for Kronwall.

A few minutes afterward finds Filp and Cleary getting into some word-slinging, but the refs break that up.

My mother IS A NICE WOMAN! YOU TAKE THAT BACK!

Franzen gets a nice wrist shot off. But it goes wide. C'mon, Franzen...

The Wild announcers give some props to Lidstrom. As I'm sure every announcer pair has done every game this season. They make sure to mention he's 40 years old. In case we've forgotten.

A Wild mauls Abby. Sorry, Abs...

Jimmah makes some saves. Stuart tries very hard not to behead him when he makes a belly stick save.

Stuart takes a slap shot from the point and nails Cleary. Oh god...

Aw shit...

Cleary attempts to crawl his way to the bench. A ref gives him a little help. It doesn't look good.

No real good shot of the damage from the Wild feed. Cleary was attempting to jump over the Stuart shot, but it ends up drilling him in the ankle. Cleary tries to sit it off on the bench in a mild amount of distress. Piet hovers like a worried mother.

Oh sweet hockey stick, oh it hurts-

... god dammit, Stuart.

The Wild hold a looks-like-a-power-play shift in our zone. It makes me very nervous. Not that I think we'll lose by this point, but I like shut-outs.

The Wild go to the box for hooking. Cleary makes an appearance on the power play to test things out. The Wild announcers remark that he's fine until he takes the skate off. Which turns out to be true.

We squander the power play.

A Wild slashes Franzen. A lot. No call.

Then a Draper randomly heads to the box for hooking. Seriously, with the penalties...

Helm gets a breakaway. Of course he does.

The Wild finally manage to score a goal. Sorry about that shut out, Jimmy. Eaves looked particularly upset with this one, as it pretty much happened right under his nose.

Damn...

Lidstrom makes a series of smart defensive plays. Because he's Nicklas Fucking Lidstrom and he has an Awesomeness Quota to fulfill every game.

Then a Wild heads to the box for tripping. Are you kidding meeeeee-

We kind of just do whatever on this power play. The game is obviously in the bag and the puck spends a lot of time being passed around in our zone and in neutral. The power play takes up the last minutes of the period except for a brief, uneventful stretch of 16 seconds. The Wild don't bother to pull their goaltender, and we exit the building with our two points.

Bitches.

After the game is over, Cleary takes his skate off and the team announces he broke his ankle and will be out for a month or so. Ughhh... 

Don't Think We Didn't Notice:

At a stop in play following Stuart drilling Cleary, we get a long look at Danny on the bench. Bertuzzi keeps sneaking sideways glances at his Shake and Bake partner like he wants to give him a man-nudge on the shoulder or something and tell him to keep his chin up.

If Bertuzzi does in fact have a 'worried' look in his facial repertoire, this is probably it

No one Served With Pride. But Havlat did serve a ridiculous face-off violation penalty. Which deserves some recognition. It's almost as good as playing the puck outside the trapezoid.