The Wings take on the Canucks in a game that starts at breakfast time for their Vancouver tummies (or it would if they hadn’t spent all week in the greater New York Metropolitan Area playing the Devils, Rangers and Islanders).
Big question is whether Jake Walman and Lucas Raymond would be able to play. Walman was shaken up against the Flames on Thursday and Raymond was shaken up against Ben Chiarot in practice yesterday.
Well shit.
Husso gets another start. Here we go.
You ready to get started early? Yeah you are. 1:08 in on the second shift, Dylan Larkin makes it 1-0 Red Wings with a good forecheck play to make some space for a snipe from the circle.
Rasmussen nearly scores on the follow up and then the Canucks get a dangerous chance. Sheldon Dries gets the puck in the crease and then Joe Veleno is checked into the Wings’ net by Dakota Joshua. Then we’re barely more than 2.5 minutes in an Jonatan Berggren makes it 2-0 Wings with a great net-side tip-in off a pass from Ben Chiarot.
That’s assists from Seider and Chiarot on both goals.
JT Miller takes a roughing penalty on the next shift punching Olli Määttä in the back of the head and also an unsportsmanlike for mouthing off like a big dumb baby. four minute PP for the Wings. Perron dings the post on a wide-open net about three minutes in but otherwise I get an opportunity to get caught up writing this recap.
Not a lot happens for a few minutes until Vancouver takes another penalty. This one is a puck-over-glass call against Oliver Ekman-Larsson. This power play also stinks. The next couple shifts stay good for the Wings but the Canucks get their first true scoring opportunity with under seven to go with a dangerous cycle and a ping off the outside of the post behind Husso that stays out.
Five minutes to go and a Jonatan Berggren-Pius Suter 2-on-1 rush ends with Berggren passing it and Suter double-clutching before having a shot attempt prevented.
The rest of the period expires with nothing else worth reporting.
The Score: 2-0 Wings
The Shots: 10-7 Wings
Observations: The power play is still being driven from the sides of the zone rather than top-and-bottom and it’s bad. I think the scoreboard is doing a better job than the shot count showing where that period was. Detroit got a lot of really good chances and Husso didn’t have much challenge. The defenders got on rebounds pretty quick.
Quinn Hughes draws a chuckle from Ken Daniels 90 seconds in with a neat play to keep the puck in at the line and then drive an unscreened slapper that Husso easily swallows. Miller just misses a backdoor tap-in and then Määttä takes a slashing penalty in front of the net to put Vancouver on the PP.
Isles move the puck quickly and find Anthony Beauvilier in the slot to snap it past Husso. 2-1 Red Wings.
Vancouver continues to control play after the goal while Detroit’s defense generally holds structure well but can’t get pucks moving the right way. The Wings get their first shot of the period with 10:08 to play as Joe Veleno rips a shot off Martin’s shoulder off an odd-man rush. Sundqvist gets tripped in the offensive zone a minute later and the Wings get extended 6-on-5 time before a neutral zone touch sends Riley Stillman to the box.
The PP gets to a pretty bad start, but a real god keep-in by Mo Seider at the point resets things and Detroit starts moving the puck into the high danger area, finishing with a Dylan Larkin PP goal to make it 3-1 Red Wings on a shot that looked a lot like the one Perron put off the post in the first.
This goal gives the Wings back some momentum and they start putting more pressure on the Canucks, with Rasmussen doing good big guy work in the O-zone.
Late in the period, Michael Rasmussen gets tripped up coming into the zone as Ethan Bear takes his legs out and Moose hits the boards hard leg first. Another power play for the Wings. This one will carry over into the third.
The Score: 3-1 Detroit
The Shots: 20-19 Canucks (13-9 Vancouver)
Observations: Quinn Hughes was dancing along the blue line with the puck a bunch and I thought Tyler Bertuzzi did a great job keeping him from doing anything dangerous with that.
Detroit wastes the rest of the power play and Ethan Bear gets a breakaway coming out of the box. Hronek rushes back and tries a diving sweep-check that takes Bear’s skates out and runs him heavily back-first into the boards. Bear is helped off the ice and Vancouver is awarded a penalty shot. With Bear unable to take the shot, Tocchet gives the honor to Quinn Hughes. Lalonde challenges that Hughes wasn’t on the ice. Refs re-check and allow it anyway (apparently thanks to a line change during the breakaway). Then Husso skates out of his crease to get the ice repaired and this game may never restart.
Hughes makes a nifty deke and has Husso beat, but trying to get it around Husso’s outstretched leg ends up being too much for Quinn Hughes as he loses the puck off the end of his stick and the score remains unchanged.
On the follow-on after play restarts, Hronek goes ice-cold and makes the score 4-1 Detroit with a wrister through traffic from the point.
Larkin skates in with Kubalik on an odd-man rush and opts to pass instead of going for the hatty. Hughes breaks up the pass.
Coming out of the first break, the Wings draw yet another penalty. Quinn Hughes interferes with Robby Fabbri to prevent a 3-on-1 rush and Andrew Copp still gets a chance on a 2-on-1 instead. Wings’ power play goes to work.
This one takes a while to get going, but once they’re set, the setup has two men high and they start working down low. Larkin and Bertuzzi help create trouble to the goalie’s right and then fight Jonatan Berggren to make it 5-1 Detroit with a backdoor pass that Johnny Burgers slams in quickly.
Vancouver follows up quickly as Elias Pettersson makes it 5-2 for the Wings. Seider gets ganged up on trying to come out of the zone and Chiarot is left alone on a short odd-man. Husso stops the first shot, but Pettersson is there to slam the rebound home.
[NHL.Com link to the highlight]
Jordan Oesterle takes the next penalty interfering with Sheldon Dries in the Wings’ zone. Vancouver gets a chance to make the game interesting with under ten to play. The Canucks create a lot of chances for greasy goalscoring, but the PKers and Husso do good work to clean up the gunk quickly and Oesterle steps out.
Pettersson gets a 1-on-1 with Husso from the low slot with space to make a shootout move and Husso absolutely stones him by splaying out the pads, but Vancouver keeps heavy pressure on in the Detroit zone. Husso stands strong still.
The Score: 5-2 Wings
The Shots: 35-25 Vancouver (15-7)
Observations: The Canucks are not very good!
This is a game that could have gotten away from the Wings and I’d rather Husso not have faced so many shots, but they buckled it down in terms of the kind of big clusterfucks that have ended in goals that we’ve been watching over the past several years. Many of those chances against were one-and-done with the goalie being asked to make a reasonable save and the defender needing to make a a doable play to keep the second chance from coming.
Finally getting some power play scoring was nice as well.
Wings get on a plane out west for a road trip rehashing all the games from this past week. First up will be an immediate rematch against Vancouver on Monday.
Good job today, George: