Never Eat Beans Before You Play Hockey

By Adam W Parks

Wednesday, December 9, 2009 Blues 1 @ Red Wings 0

Wednesday's contest was an absolute must win if playoff hopes were to be realized this season. Sitting at 1-3 in a ten-game season and having been outscored 27-17, the Storm faced an arch-rival: the Blades of Steel. The Blades, also at 1-3, dominated the Storm last season by sweeping the regular season series 2-0 and knocking us out of the playoffs in the first round.

Outside, the winds were whipping and the snow was accumulating. Inside, the concrete floor of the locker rooms at Rivertown Sports in Grandville, MI was like ice, and I had difficulty warming my toes before lacing up the skates. My stomach was tied up in knots from a combination of game-related tension and gas...I had eaten a large bowl of delicious three-bean soup prior to the game. Not my best idea ever.

With a belly full of beans I knew I would be lacking my usual break-out speed, so I decided to play a more conservative game than usual. Skating on offense, I concentrated more on my defensive duties and settled for sending outlet pass after outlet pass to my linemate, Cole Pinder, instead of jumping up and joining the rush. Goalie Mike Endres always gives us a chance to win and he was his usual solid, steady self between the pipes, and the dynamic defensive duo of Don "Old Balls" Kuitula and Mark "One Ball" Samp kept the area in front of Endres clean. Pinder and Ryan "Dirty D" Dirheimer each scored twice to propel us to a 5-4 victory, and I sent several blistering wrist shots wide of the net to remain scoreless on the season.

After most games I will generally swing by my favorite watering hole in Grand Rapids, a place that brews some of the best damn beer in the country. This particular night I was joined by Kuitula and Dirheimer to celebrate our victory over a couple of brews. As I took my seat and settled into a basket of peanuts and a pint of hoppy goodness, I directed my attention to a TV behind the bar and watched the Wings postgame coverage on Fox Sports Detroit. The joy of my team's victory washed away when I saw the final score: St. Louis 1, Detroit 0.

Troubling Troubles That Are Troubling Me

What is happening in Hockeytown? The blanking of Detroit by the Blues is the third shutout against the Wings in their last five home games. Joe Louis Arena, once a place of fear for opposing goalies, has become a safe haven for visitors and a virtual scoring desert for Detroit.

Since scoring ten combined goals in back to back home wins against Vancouver (November 12) and Anaheim (November 14), the Wings have only earned three points in the last seven games at the Joe (1-5-1). During that dreadful stretch they scored more goals in the lone win than they did in all of the six losses combined. The 4-1 victory over Dallas is the only game out of the seven that Detroit scored more than one goal.

The Blues scored the only goal of the game less than two minutes into the first period. I said it before, and I'll say it again: the Wings need to start games with more energy and stop allowing teams to score first in games.

Detroit is 6-2-2 when scoring first this season. That is a pretty good record, right? Well the Wings have played 30 games so far, and that means that they have given up the first goal in the other 20 games (8-9-3). In the last 12 games the opposition has scored first...nine times. Nine times? Nine times...and in those games they have been outscored in the first period by a total of 14-5.

It is hard enough to win in the NHL, but it is even harder to come from behind and win, and the Wings have been making it their personal business to prove that hypothesis. Detroit outplayed and outshot St. Louis 13-4 in the first period, but it made no difference with a 0-1 deficit going into the intermission.

Backup-vs-Backup

It was a battle of backups on Wednesday night. Jimmy Howard-vs-Ty Conklin. Conklin was the backup goaltender to Marc-Andre Fleury in Pittsburgh when the Wings beat the Penguins in the Stanley Cup Finals in 2008. Last season he was the backup to Chris Osgood and won 25 regular season games with Detroit. He signed with St. Louis after the Finals last season when the Wings decided they could not afford his services and is now the backup to Chris Mason.

Conklin stopped all 42 shots that the Wings through at him en route to his second shutout of the season. He has a record of 5-2-1 in eight starts in relief of Mason, a goals-against average of an even 2.00, and his save percentage is an outstanding .939. Detroit went 0-6 on the power play as Conklin made 13 saves with his team down a man. Three of those 13 shots came on a 5-on-3 opportunity for Detroit.

Conklin was just the next goaltender in line to have a great game against a team that has forgotten how to score at home. As far as the home shutouts go for the Wings, this one was right on par. They outshot St. Louis 42-26, Calgary 40-17, and Atlanta 40-25. I loved what Conklin did in Detroit last season, spelling the struggling Ozzie and winning some big games for the Wings, but this shutout stings. It always burns a little hotter when a player leaves for more money and then returns to town to showcase what his former team is missing out on. Andy Murray, coach of the Blues, had this to say after the game:

"That's why you pay goalies."

What a prick.

Howard was the backup to the backup when Conklin was in Detroit and only received one start last season. After four seasons of ripening and maturing in Grand Rapids, Howie was brought up to replace Conklin as Osgood's primary backup, a role he has flourished in thus far. Howard stopped 25 shots against the Blues and 17 in the second period alone. As he has done in nearly every game this year, Howard kept his team in the game and gave the Wings a chance to win. Mike Babcock was disappointed in the loss, but pleased with his young goalie's play:

"He made some big saves to give our guys an opportunity to come back and did a great job of holding down the fort."

This win for St. Louis gives them the bragging rights on the season over Detroit as the Blues (3-0-1) have already wrapped up the six-game series over the Wings (1-3-0). It also makes Conklin 2-0 on the season against his former team as he also beat out Howard 5-3 in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Blues Like Boyes

Apparently Conklin really likes Boyes. St. Louis center Brad Boyes picked up the lone goal of the game and his first game-winning score of the season with a one-timed slapshot that Howard had little chance of stopping. Boyes is tied with Paul Kariya for second on the Blues roster with eight goals, and he is third with 17 points. He had his best offensive output a season ago when he scored 33 goals and 72 points, but was a minus-20 on a bad Blues team.

He has been a thorn in the Wings so far this season, scoring nearly a quarter of his total on the season (three goals and four points) in the four games against Detroit. That may not sound too impressive, but consider this: the combination of Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, and Nicklas Lidstrom have only produced a total of five points with one goal in those same four games.

Griffin Eggs

Ericsson Gets Tanked-I did not want to do this because I really like the guy, but Jonathan Ericsson now joins another former Griffin, Ville Leino, as the only Wings to have gotten on my bad side this season. Leino landed there after the 0-2 shutout loss to Atlanta on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Ericsson deserved a calling out after his horrendous performance against the Rangers, but I gave him a pass as the Wings were able to ink out a 3-1 victory. In a shooting gallery of a game, Ericsson only registered one shot on net, whereas Lidstrom had four, and Brian Rafalski and Brad Stuart each had three. Giveaways have been the biggest problem for the big guy and he had two more of them against St. Louis; Stuart and Derek Meech each had one while Lidstrom, Rafalski, and Brett Lebda had none. Ericsson's saving grace: six hits, but that should be expected on a nightly basis for somebody his size.

So, until further notice, Jonathan Ericsson is officially in my Turtle Tank.

Nugs and Notes

Zilch for Zetterberg-Zetterberg leads all Wings in scoring this season, averaging a point per game, and his ten goals are just one behind Tomas Holmstrom for the team lead in that category. He has racked up 123 shots on goal this season which is the third most in the NHL, and on Wednesday he led all skaters with seven shots sent towards Conklin. However, Hank has not scored in his last five games and only has two since his hat trick at home against Anaheim on November 14 (12 games). Alas, Zetterberg may find relief in the form of a Duck as Detroit will host Anaheim again on Friday.

Peace.