Duck Season Officially Open

WINGS CRUSH DUCKS 5-0
Series 2-1 in Wings' favor
(What on earth was I on when this said Sharks? Remind me not to post at 3am)

First off, is that Valtteri Filppula using one of those sticks that Datsyuk's stirred up so much noise about? I haven't noticed it in the games - has anyone else? It's too late for me to feel like looking up pictures and checking right now, but I couldn't help but see at least that he was carrying one in these celebration pictures tonight.

On to the game - that was the kind of thing you don't expect to see in the playoffs. Especially by the time you hit the WCF. In a beautiful 5-0 effort by Hasek and the Wings, we moved up 2-1 for the series and showed that we can not only take a beating, we can dish one out like the best of them.

The Wings' offensive effort was brilliant, especially compared to the past couple games where it would have really been nice to see a little more. Babcock shuffled the line around a bit (and also gave Tomas Kopecky a chance to play, after being out injured since December 19th) and it looks to have worked like a charm - not only that, but once again our potential for scoring depth made a great showing. Franzen broke out with the first goal, followed up with a nice shot by Homer - a wristshot and not the sort of goal we're used to seeing from him, which only made it more satisfying - a tip in in front of the net by Bertuzzi, another Holmstrom goal, and finally to top off the evening, my other rookie Filppula stepped up and knocked one in to bump us up to five. Not to mention the statistic when you factor in assists - of the 18 members of tonight's roster, 10 notched points.

The Ducks, on the other hand, couldn't seem to stay out of the box, which really hurt their offensive chances - I'll admit, Pronger raging at the referees made me a little bit happy.

Make that face all you want, Prongs, it didn't get you your pants back and it won't make the refs take pity on you either.

He and Baby Nieds took a really nasty shot at Holmstrom, knocking him down and sending him back to the lockerroom with two cuts on his forehead. It looked worrisome for a bit, but luckily Homer was back in the third period. I'm skeptical on the call - Niedermayer got a five minute penalty for boarding and a game misconduct, but Pronger, that jerkbag, walked away with nothing.

As for goaltending, Dominik Hasek was brilliant in net tonight, notching him yet another playoff shutout. He made several excellent stops and even using some of his patented wandering out of the net, successfully poking the puck away from a couple different Ducks. The announcers commented that he must have been getting bored - and rightfully so; the Ducks were outshot 13-2 in the second.

J.S. Giguere, on the other hand, looked a bit shaky at the beginning, and (much to my delight) was pulled in the second, allowing Ilya Bryzgalov another shot at playoff glory.

Sure they weren't as cute as Luongo and Sabourin, but what can you expect from Ducks.

Unfortunately, he let in the first shot that was taken on him (though to his credit I don't quite know how the Ducks let Valtteri Filppula get quite so far into the zone to begin with). He didn't look bad, however, which made me happy. Duck hatred I may have, but I really do have a soft spot for Bryz and I'm not the only one:

Me: Okay Ilya like, spins. when he gets back up and they're moving the puck away he just sort of makes little circles and it's really adorable.
Elly: Ilya does this cute shoulder roll thing....so cute.

And there's even a Facebook group dedicated to his Score interview. The poor guy, this must feel like flashbacks to last year's WCF - I can just picture him sitting there in net, muttering to himself about closing the door. (To note, I really wish there were more Knob Hockey happening this year).

Now we just have to wait and see if the Wings can keep this up again in Anaheim Thursday - I have faith!

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Speaking of goalies I have odd attachments to, tomorrow could be Ty Conklin's last game of the season - by the looks of things, the poor guy isn't even getting to suit up and stop some pucks during practice over in Buffalo.

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Having finally been home for a playoff game, I took a bunch of pictures and was finally able to have something to submit to the Japers' Rink View From Your Playoff Seats project - they were nice enough to feature my favorite on their page, so I wanted to take a minute to pimp the project in general for anyone who hasn't heard about it yet.

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Finally in a quick Tigers update just because this is getting called our biggest win yet and I can't help but be happy over it, the boys took on the Red Sox in Boston tonight and upset them 7-2. Verlander had a strong evening, pitching for 7 2/3 innings and and my boy Magglio Ordonez lit up the stadium with a home run that brought in three. Go Tigers!

Wings 3 Ducks 4...aka SKATE WITH IT!

DUCKS 4 WINGS 3

Series tied 1-1

Well, my eyeliner had a good run, but all good things come to an end, it appears.

I made it down to the game this evening and as usual had nothing to actually write notes down on, so this is going to be a very objective sort of game review and I'm probably lacking a lot of information. First things first, I learned from Christy this afternoon that the Wings, as a Mother's Day special, were selling autographed pucks for $20. She couldn't make the game, but asked me to pick one up for her, so I made my way over to the table and snagged the last two - both signed by Bertuzzi - for us. We were also given rally towels and carnations for Mother's Day.

I hadn't been to a playoff game this far into a series in quite a few years, and I wasn't sure what to expect, especially at the Joe where we've been criticzed lately for the lack of sellouts and the lackluster crowd. I can tell you for a fact, there was nothing lackluster about the crowd at the Joe tonight. While the lower bowl had a fair amount of empty seats, the upper bowl was almost entirely full - just another bit of proof that it's really the high ticket prices that are doing us in. My seats were section 201, row 4 (the view from the picture above is ours) and priced at $158 a person - plus the $15 parking.


Before the game I was watching the Ducks warm up and looking for Ilya Bryzgalov (he and I have an illicit affair which we don't speak of because it means there's a Duck in the world I tolerate so shhh) - right before he skated off the ice he went to give Giguere a hug, or so it looked - but he ended up half-tackling him and knocking them both back into the goal. Cute. Also during warmup I was slightly surprised to see Kopecky skating around with the boys, and Meech as well. I wonder if my rookie Hudler is sulking about not getting to play - he wasn't out there at all.

The Wings and the Ducks looked fairly evenly matched throughout the majority of the game. The Ducks did outplay us in the first period, and through the start of the second (for the first chunk of the second it really looked like we didn't have any energy, any offensive power, our powerplay was downright anemic, until Maltby's goal, after which we really picked it up for the rest of the game).

Two of Anaheim's four goals were reviewed - the first of which we didn't get any sort of recap of except for the net-cam view, which didn't look remotely like it was in at all, but sounds like it was a fair goal from what I've seen elsewhere. The second seemed sketchier to me as Hasek had the puck and it didn't cross the line until he got pushed farther into the net - though looked more clearly like a goal on the view we were given.

The game really was either team's to win, and I don't believe this loss will have a major impact on us, especially if Hasek bounces back the way he usually does after having a less than stellar outing. Once the Wings found their stride they looked strong and more than capable of dealing with the Ducks, so long as they can keep it up. Our pp looked much stronger after Maltby's shorthanded goal, and both Lidstrom and Datsyuk notched a ppg before the game was over, not to mention our pk was as strong as ever and for the most part looked excellent.

Pavel Datsyuk looked a little off to me tonight - I hope it was just coincidence, and maybe even being shaken up a little from the first couple minutes of play where he took about three good hits in a row, but his skating seemed to have a lot less finesse than usual. He fell several times, didn't seem to have quite the control he usually does, and generally didn't skate with the skill he's shown he has. Then again, he wasn't playing necessarily poorly either, and he definitely had several nice moments.

There was a guy sitting behind us who seemed to know a lot about all the individual players and yet very little about hockey - he also had a tendency to be horribly loud and yell particularly random things at really odd times; "GET THE PUCK!" "SKATE WITH IT!", "CHARGE!", "ATTACK!" and "TODD!" being just a few. As odd as it was, it seemed to really apply overall - the Wings really did to do a lot more of all of those things (even including the Todd bit - I didn't see Bertuzzi making nearly enough impact tonight), and I hope they can pick all of them up by Tuesday's game.

Perhaps the most important event of the night, however, was me coming fully into my hatred of Chris Pronger. That's right, I couldn't, before this, even though I tried. I kept looking at him and seeing Chris Pronger, my playoff hero (okay, after Pisani), the guy who took that ridiculous penalty shot and made it. But after seeing him there, live and in person and hulking over everyone else on the ice, wincing everytime he took one of those laser shots from the blueline, hearing it rocket off the glass, worrying every time he got the puck during a pp, seeing that stupid gap-toothed grin and he celebrated with his little Ducklings, knowing just what an impact he has on a team and constantly thinking about how that impact, that god damn fucking puck moving defenseman impact, could have been Edmonton's all season instead of working against us right now, I hated him. So there. I booed him every time I saw him. I yelled, I cursed, and I hate Chris Pronger. You win, Lauren.

See everyone Tuesday night - GO WINGS!