My Head Hurts

By Adam W Parks

Saturday, December 6, 2009 Red Wings 3 @ Devils 4 SO

I will admit, I did not watch any of this game. It was a college football day. My Grand Valley State Lakers won their matchup in the NCAA Division II Semifinals against the Carson-Newman Eagles, 41-27, at Lubbers Stadium in Allendale, MI. GVSU won back-to-back national titles under former coach Brian Kelly in 2002 and 2003. Kelly's current team, Cincinnati, completed a 21-point comeback against Pittsburgh as the Bearcats finished off a perfect undefeated season. (ps. Coach Kelly is good, really good, and should be the next coach at Notre Dame). Alabama tapped out Tim Tebow, and Texas narrowly averted an upset from Nebraska. All that and killing zombies in Left 4 Dead 2 on my buddy's X-Box 360 is what I did on Saturday.

Another buddy of mine, an avid Wings fan transplanted into dangerous territory near Pittsburgh, PA, texted me in the middle of the GVSU game to ask my opinion of Detroit's matchup against New Jersey. I wrote back, "Not a good feeling. At NJ. Brodeur." The Devils are one of those teams that I kind of wished I liked. Martin Brodeur is an unbelievable goaltender (soooo much better than Patrick Roy) and they have always had a great defense. Really, they have basically been the Red Wings of the Eastern Conference for the last 20 seasons. Going back to the 1989-1990 season the Devils have three Stanley Cups and have only missed the playoffs once, in 1996. Ironically, it was the season prior to that particular rare playoff absence that is the root for my hatred for the garbage-filled state of New Jersey.

Wings Nearly Reach Hockey Heaven, Get Trapped In Hockey Hell

1995 was an interesting and special year for the NHL, and it was nearly a magical one for the Wings...if it weren't for those nasty, trap-playing Devils. It was the lockout season and teams only played 48 games as the season did not begin until January. The franchise that used to be the Nordiques were still cool and had not yet left Quebec City for the Rocky Mountains (Quebec had the most points in the Eastern Conference that season, it still amazes me that a great team can be uprooted like that--stupid Canadians, spend your Loonies and go watch your teams). Everybody's second favorite team, the Whale, was still kicking it in Hartford. Fox snagged the rights to put the NHL back on network television; the broadcast agreement was the first in America for the league since 1975. For two Original Six teams it was a case of hello/goodbey as it marked the final season for the Bruins in the historic Boston Garden, and it was the first season for the Blackhawks in the United Center. And, most importantly of all, a rule change that required two zambonis to handle the ice-resurfacing duties was implemented. Double the zamboni, double the sweetness.

The Red Wings were the best team of that shortened season, winning the President's Trophy with 33 wins, 11 losses, and 4 ties. They had the third-best offense in the NHL behind the Nordiques (185) and the Pittsburgh Penguins (181) with 180 goals scored. Only the Blackhawks (115) had a more stifling defense than Detroit as the Wings only allowed 117 goals on the season. With Scottie Bowman behind the bench and Stevie Yzerman captaining Paul Coffey, Nicklas Lidstrom, Dino Ciccarelli, Keith Primeau, Ray Sheppard, Dougie Brown, Bob Errey, Darren McCarty, Martin Lapointe, Kris Draper, those five Russian dudes, and Mike Vernon in net, the Wings were hands-down favorites to bring home the Stanley Cup for the first time in 40 years...just one season after the New York Rangers ended their 54-year drought.

Everything was in line for the Wings; they merely had to follow their celestial navigation to find the holiest of grails. Oh! how they appeared like they were going to get that Cup too. Detroit breezed through the Western Conference playoffs, beginning with a 4-1 Texas-sized stomping of the Stars. They then cleanly de-finned San Jose 4-0 in the second round, leaving the Sharks impaired and aimless. This set up what was supposed to be a classic Original Six showdown in the Western Conference finals against Chicago. I hated that Blackhawks team almost as much as the Avalanche teams during the bloody years. Chris Chelios led the Suckhawks along with Gary Suter, Tony Amonte, Jeremy Roenick, Joe Murphy, Bernie Nichols, and Brent Sutter. And then there was Eddie 'The Dumbass Eagle' Belfour. How I despised him most of all. Chicago had gone seven games with the Maple Leafs in the first round, and like the Wings they got a sweep in the second over the Canucks. But the Hawks were just a speed bump for Detroit as Sergei Fedorov and company rolled over them 4-1 and onto the first Stanley Cup Finals appearance for the Wings in 29 years.

Fedorov led all players in the playoffs that season with 24 points, but he and the rest of the Wings could not put enough pucks past Brodeur and the Devils in the Finals and New Jersey pulled a stunning upset over Detroit to the shocking tune of a 4-0 sweep. Oh! how the Hockey Gods can be so crule! Those were the worst four straight games of Red Wings hockey that I have ever been witness to. In every game Jacques Lemaire's trap-style defense annoyingly clogged up the center ice making it virtually impossible for the more skilled Wings to carry the puck into Devils zone. The Wings would push and press and any shot they could muster at the net was most-often turned aside by Brodeur, and every Detroit mistake seemed to prove costly as New Jersey scored timely goals off of turnovers. It was devastating to watch; my middle school Stanley Cup dreams were destroyed right before my eyes as jerks like Scott Niedermayer and Scott Stevens got to raise the Cup. I had to stomach watching idiots like Stephane Richer and Bobby Holik, John MacLean (not the Die Hard dude), Neal Broten, Randy McKay, Brian Rolston and Bill Guerin celebrate on their home ice in the Hell that is New Jersey. The seeds for every Wings fan's hatred for Claude Lemieux were planted there in the putrid soil of New York City's disgusting skutt bucket. Garden State? Please! Meadowlands? My ass!

Anyway, that is why I do not like the New Jersey Devils.

The Importance of Scoring First

As for the game on Saturday, the Devils netted a pair of first period goals on Saturday that put the Wings down 0-2 early in the game. Detroit was able to overcome the deficit, but the odds of winning games under such circumstances are never very good, and are even worse for the Wings this season.

Something was bugging me about the way the Wings were performing early in games, so instead of watching the Lions lose to the Bengals, I decided to do some sniffing around for some stats, even though numbers make my head hurt (more) on Sundays. I really hate charts and graphs and crunching and carrying ones, but I was able to come up with this synopsis: the Wings really need to concentrate on getting that all-important first goal. On the season, Detroit is 6-2-2 when scoring the first goal of a game, but have lost 11 of 18 games when giving up the first goal. I decided to take a sample of the season, a ten game cross section, and performed some further analysis.

Going back to the November 18th 3-1 defeat from the sticks of the Dallas Stars, the Wings have gone 3-5-2. In those seven losses, they have been outscored by a total of 2-9 in the first periods. In those same seven losses, the Wings have given up a first period goal in six of the games. Detroit has faced 0-2 deficits in each of those six defeats and even stared at one in the shootout win over St. Louis. In the three victories, they scored the first goal of the game twice, and tied their opposition 3-3 for first period goals. So in those ten games, the Wings have been outscored 5-12 in the first periods of play.

Okay, that sucked, but hopefully I made my point. The Wings have not started games well and they blow when they give up first period goals.

Separating The Goods from the Garbage

Kris Draper scored the first goal of the game for the Wings, a wrist shot for his fifth on the season. Tomas Holmstrom got a power play goal in the second period for his team-leading eleventh of the season, and Henrik Zetterberg received an assist on the score to give him a team-high 28 points in 28 games. After missing a couple of games with a sore ankle, Patrick Eaves earned an assist on the Draper goal and forced overtime for the Wings when he tipped in a Justin Abdelkader shot for his second of the season. Eaves had been out after he caught his skate in a rut during the pregame skate against Dallas back on Monday. Yes the Wings gave up two goals in the first period and went down 0-2 for the seventh time in the past ten games, but they responded by getting three pucks behind Brodeur and earning a much-needed point against a really good Eastern Conference rival.

Griffin Eggs

A friend of mine had an extra ticket for me to see the Griffins play on Friday. Fridays are the best night to see a hockey game in Grand Rapids because from 6-8 PM hot dogs and beers are only $1. The Griffins lost the game 2-1, but my entire section was more than entertained by the drunk guy that could not keep his head up and shirt on. He was passed out before the first intermission! Hilarious. Thanks Brett.

Meech 'n Kindl-The Griffs appeared to be lacking defensively as Jakub Kindl was still in Detroit supplanting the sore backed Brian Rafalski. He and Derek Meech put up solid numbers for the Wings against the Devils as Kindl finished the game with an even rating in 11:40 of ice time. Meech was a plus-1 in just 8:33. Neither defensemen registered a shot on goal, but Meech skated for 0:54 of power play time. After sharing blue line duties on the power play with Lidstrom on Thursday, Kindl did not see any ice with the man advantage.

Peace.