Pavel & Henrik, sittin' in a tree...

For all Mike Babcock says about Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg agreeing to be split up because both wanted to play center, Datsyuk appears a little broken up over it, when asked about his feelings on the matter:

"My reaction?" Datsyuk said Thursday after an informal skate at Joe Louis Arena. "I start crying. I can't sleep two days. But now everything is fine."

Datsyuk and Zetterberg were a dominant one-two punch when they played together last season.

"I help Hank, Hank helped me," Datsyuk said.

Datsyuk is taking a wait-and-see approach with the proposed break-up with Zetterberg.

"Every year we start like that (on different lines)," Datsyuk said. "It's not new. It's a long season. Nobody knows. I'm happy we're still on the same team. I hope we finish on the same team."

It seems Pavel is as skeptical as the rest of us about whether or not the move will last. It's great to see the comradery and chemistry between those two (as D-Mac said last year, "they're together"), as well as Datsyuk's always entertaining humor. (Okay, I admit, that was the real reason I wanted to post this.)

"We can still be friends."

Coach Mike Babcock has confirmed - "not maybe, for sure" - that the Eurotwin superstars Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk will be broken up for the upcoming season. Says Babcock,

"They're not playing together. It would be crazy to play them together. They both want to play center anyway."

While I've never heard anything on Zetterberg professsing the desire to play center rather than wing, they were both natural centers, told by Babcock when they were put together to decide amongst themselves who was going to play what, if I remember the story right, it certainly makes sense.

Adding Marian Hossa over the summer, and the breakout performance of Johan Franzen last season are the number one reasons the move is possible - and it's impossible to argue that with the new depth of the team, breaking up the stars isn't smart. Earlier in the summer the rumbling was that perhaps the big line would stay together, allowing for a second line of Hossa, Valtteri Filppula, and Franzen, but the plan for now is that Datsyuk will open training camp on a line with Hossa and Tomas Holmstrom, while Zetterberg will play with Franzen and Jiri Hudler, squashing all speculation of a Franzen-Filppula-Hossa line.

It's an amazing thing to see the team have enough depth to make a move like this, but questions remain. Will the new lines gel in the same way that last year's top line did? Not only that, but will Babcock stick to his guns? It's hard to doubt the man, but Babcock has tried on many occasion to split up the two and still, the standard philsophy these past few seasons has been whent he team struggles, put the Eurotwins back together and things will fall into place. While I hope the new lines succeed, seeing Datsyuk and Zetterberg playing together is something pretty special:



I for one am certainly torn - you always want to see the team succeed however possibly, and creating this much depth and allowing your best forwards to improve those around them is a great way to cement future success. With the talent the Wings have developing, it probably is crazy to put all your eggs on one line. But still, you have to love to see the sort of chemistry the Eurotwins possess. As usual, speculation is practically useless - everyone will have to wait until at the very least training camp to see the new lines, and the new Wings, at work for now.

Not Quite the Comeback Kids: Ducks 6, Wings 3

Right here, you are to pretend there is a picture from tonight's game.
I'll even type so that it's in a sort of box-like shape and add color.
And maybe tomorrow morning Blogger will have gotten its act together.
But as I have to work at 8:30 I don't feel like fighting it at the moment.

During the Red Wings Live pregame show, John Keating made the comment, "If Anaheim is the City of Angels, tonight's lineup is heavenly." (I know, I cringed too.) Unfortunately the way the game panned out it didn't look like there were many angels on either side of the ice - the entire game devolved into alternating powerplays and penalty kills, which made for a pretty exciting game, but not necessarily the outcome I was hoping for.

The Ducks struck first as Kent Huskins got away from Valtteri Filppula who looked rather shaky tonight in general - he's had a rough start to the season (0G, 0A, +1) after proving last year that he has the potential to make a strong impact on the team. Shortly after the Wings tied it up thanks to Kris Draper, who extends his goal streak to five games. Unfortunately, the Ducks weren't done, and nailed us again on a five on three. At the very end of the first period, I looked away for thirty or so seconds, and when I turned back there were three penalties and the Ducks were on the powerplay yet again - seems to be the story of the game.

The Wings' defense looked a little lacking tonight as well - for a good portion of the evening they looked more like they were reacting than going out and making plays, definitely not a smart way to play against a dangerous team like the Ducks. Especially, as every broadcaster will tell you fifteen or sixteen times, now that they've recovered from their strenuous season start.

At the start of the second things started looking up - the announcers got a bit ahead of themselves at first ("Datsyuk SCO - oh wait did that not go in?") - but the Wings rallied to tie the game off of a goal by Zetterberg and one by Brian Rafalski that looked as if it could have been tapped in by Zetterberg as well. Following that frenzy, Zetterberg played like a man possessed, and only by the grace of Ilya Bryzgalov (who looked great tonight) did he not score about five consecutive goals. He did score what would have been another goal on a wide open net, but it came after a whistle and was discredited immediately Even without those, he extends his point streak and continues to lead the league with fourteen points thus far - "After a while you just lose superlatives don't you?", say the announcers. Yeah, you do.

Unfortunately, what looked like it could have been a brilliant comeback fell short when Earl Sleek's favorite Sammy Pahlsson notched a shorthanded goal that took the Ducks up once again, and they never looked back, scoring two more (one an empty netter) before the game ended. At least Corey Perry's on one of my fantasy teams.

Despite the end result, the Wings didn't look bad tonight either - in the third period they crushed the Ducks 15-2 with regard to faceoffs, and Draper is pushing 70% on his draws. The Eurotwins weren't as visible as they were in yesterday's game, but they still come on strong - the momentum turned for the Wings in the second as a direct result of their efforts. At one point Pavel Datsyuk even got into a little scuffle and lost his helmet.

Interestingly, at one point Andreas Lilja held the puck behind the net for what seemed like honestly forever - and the Ducks fans started booing him. Shouldn't you guys still be happy about what he did for you last season? And what he proceeded to do about thirty seconds later? I wonder if we'll be seeing Derek Meech step in for him on a trial basis sometime soon - Lilja's errors are starting to rack up consequences.

And on the topic of Ducks fans - what exactly is it they're yelling out there? The Honda Center is loud enough, but when it comes right down to it, it sounds like what they're yelling is something along the lines of "LET'S SKLJFLKNEWRNCKKKAFFFAO..asdf..fdlii...kkkkszhhh". Uhhh. I know "Let's go Ducks" might not really work that rhythmically, but take a cue from the Leafs and try on "Go Ducks Go" maybe?

Last but definitely not least, Captain Elbows, where were you tonight? I was looking forward to hearty Pronger-booing, but he didn't even do anything more offensive than get some yucky close-ups. Yeah I said it. Yucky.

Next up, the last of the California bunch this Thursday!

The Wonder Twins Strike Again: Wings 4, Kings 1

Having missed the last Wings game due to work (well, that's a lie, I came home just in time to see Robert Wing Killer notch the game winner, but let's forget about that), and not been able to catch anything else recently because, well, Charter you still suck, I finally got to sit down tonight and catch the Wings take on the Kings in the start of their first Western road trip of the year.

This particular road trip was a scary one last season, wherein the Wings dropped three of four games and couldn't score more than one goal in any of those losses. Unfortunately, the one team they did beat was the Kings, in the first matchup of the trip - but let's try not to think about that either.

Going into tonight, the Wings had won thirteen of their past fourteen games against the Kings - a nice feel-good stat that made me even feel good about Chris Osgood getting the start tonight. Luckily that stat has improved to fourteen of fifteen, and Ozzie had a brilliant evening. Midway through the first period he made a flurry of amazing saves where just about every player on the ice was swarming his crease, and kept it up all night long, absolutely robbing Michael Cammalleri, who did eventually net the only Kings goal, at least twice.

The Kings goalie of the evening, Jonathan Bernier, looked pretty solid for the first few minutes, only fumbling the puck once on a second one-timer from Lilja (lucky goalie; he held onto the puck with a little bounce-move that if he'd stumbled over would have almost definitely been a goal, as there were two or three Wings waiting there to tap it in), and even looked all right after recovering from the tag team Eurotwins PP goal. Unfortunately for him, he started to crumble a little a after Kris Draper, who is currently red hot, notched a shortie on him after he went down too early and couldn't move across the net fast enough to stop it.

With those two, the Wings started the game off with a 2-0 lead, the first , which has been a scary number for them lately - and after Andreas Lilja took an untimely penalty that gave the Kings (who had scored seven PP goals to this point) a two man advantage for twenty second, allowing Cammalleri to move the Kings within one, it looked like that might be the case again. Luckily for us, the hero line of Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, and Tomas Holmstrom decided they weren't standing for that. Despite Babock's goal, at the start of the season, to keep the duo of Datsyuk and Zetterberg on seperete lines, injuries to Johan Franzen and Mikael Samuelsson have forced them back together - and what a show they are. Holmstrom scored a beautiful tic-tac-toe goal that proved he's not only a grinder and that he can work with finesse sometimes too, putting one right past Bernier to lift the Wings ahead by two again, and Zetterberg added the fourth shortly after on a brilliantly patient wraparound play. Datsyuk assisted on both, bringing their totals for the night as a line to 3G, 5A. Think that's impressive? Individually on the season their numbers look like this:

• Datsyuk: 1G 6A
• Zetterberg: 4G 8A
• Holmstrom: 5G 2A

Think they're making a damn strong case for staying together through the season, much?

They weren't the only three making an impact tonight - in the first period Babcock ran the gritty line of Dallas Drake, Matt Ellis, and Aaron Downey, inserted with the injury to Samuelsson, quite a bit, and the Money Line (two Czechs and a Finn!) from last year of Val Filppula, Jiri Hudler, and Tomas Kopecky were together for a good chunk of the night. None of them broke onto the scoresheet, but Babcock commented that they were effective in the postgame.

While the game was enjoyable, I was disappointed with the lack of Jack Johnson, having been excited to see him again after watching him play my WMU Bronco's with U of M last season. I only even heard his name twice! Hey Kms2, where was your boy tonight?

Bronco Hockey

Last night was the first game of the season for my WMU Broncos - well, an exhibition game to be precise, but exciting nonetheless. They took on the U of Windsor Lancers, and while they got off to a 0-2 start, they rallied with the help of freshman Max Campbell who led the team with two goals and an assist and ended up winning 5-2. Considering we lost our number one rookie from last year, Mark Letestu, to the WBS Penguins, seeing someone step up to that role was a relief.

As usual the game was a good time - between Jeff LoVecchio chatting with us from the penalty box and helping us cheer on Frank the Tank and Jonathan Lupa getting a game ejection for a great fight, the season started off great.

Other Miscellany

• Elly told me to mention the Penguins while she's off in Ontario. So could Ty Conklin look a little more ridiculous in this year's Baby Pens roster shot? (Oh and the Pens won with what looks to have been a good 6-4 showing at the ACC yesterday night, too.)

• Petr Hemsky, forgotten brother of Ales (read: he failed out of the OHL), scored the game winning goal 4:59 in to overtime for his current team Srnsi Kutna Hora (home of the Sedlac Ossuary - possibly the coolest thing I saw in the Czech Republic). Way to do something, other Hemsky!

• Looks like Jason Smith really does love his Timmy's - and also like he's very disinterested in, well, Lupul's existance.
  

• Some sports recap of some football game (yeah, I was paying a LOT of attention to my TV) just used the phrase "He throws like Ernest Hemingway writes." Best. Sports metaphor. Ever.
  

Tomorrow night the Wings take on the Ducks - presumably not even before I get home from my night class, so here's to hoping the road trip continues the way it's started.