A collective sigh of relief

On the way back from an excursion for a possible new cell phone and a birthday gift for a friend’s seven year old, I told my wife that my return to octopusthrower.com was going to be about how bad the Wings have been playing since the loss of Nic Kronwell. At the time, they were down 2-0 after 20 minutes to the St. Louis Blues, and  looked to be on their way to a third-straight shutout loss, which would have been the first time a Red Wing team had gone 180 straight minutes without a goal.

However, like they have already this season,the Winged-Wheeled Warriors picked themselves back up off the ice and finished strong with some clutch play to end their scoreless streak and snap a two-game losing streak with a 4-3 win over the last-place Blues.

Its not that they have been playing down-right awful, more like they have not been able to get the breaks when they have made plays, but the start tonight was less then inspiring seeing as the wings had not scored since their 3-1 loss to Nashville on Monday night.

The final 40 minutes reminded me of the Wings teams that we are used to seeing, using hard work to create quality scoring chances in front of the net. The ‘puck luck’ finally showed up for the Wings in the third as they outscored St. Louis 2-1 to tie the game.

Then after a scoreless OT period, one guy who definitely deserved to get a game-winning goal, Todd Bertuzzi, scored the final goal of the shootout to put Detroit on the winning side of a Red Wing v. Blues game this season.

Although Bert and Hank Zetterberg were the stars of the night, Hank scoring the equalizer with under a minute left in the third, I thought the line of Abdelkader, Draper and Helm was spectacular all night long. They accounted for one goal, Draper’s that tied the game at 2-2 in the second, while Helm nearly tied the game at 3-3 in the third with a backhand attempt. Darren also created an opportunity in the OT period as well. Larry Murphy gave that line a lot of credit on Red Wings Live after the game.

Most impressively though about tonight’s performance is that the Wings never looked panicked. Even after falling behind by a pair, they stuck to Mike Babcock’s system, looking a little more patient then they had against Atlanta and Calgary, and chipped away until they had a shot to win.

Along with the play of the forwards and defenseman, they goal tending was solid tonight as well. I can describe the play of the Wings’ net minder in two wards…HOWIE WOWIE!!!!

Jimmy Howard made some of the greatest saves of his career, especially late Saturday night. His stop against Paul Kariya in overtime and the three stops he had to make in the shootout were great. As much as a love Chris Osgood, I think Howard is really proving to be the guy this season. It kind of reminds me of the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs where Hasak was the top goalie for the Wings all season long, but Osgood had the mojo during the postseason as he led the Wings to Cup No. 11.

Sorry I haven’t been keeping up with the blog lately. I had been pretty busy at work as I had to prep a great deal for the holiday weekend. Look for me to update the site on more of a regular basis from here on out.

If anybody would like to post something or comment on any blog of mine, please feel free. I would love to start a sort of dialogue on here for the remainder of the season.

Until the next time, LET’S GO RED WINGS!!!!

Wingnut 5013