These Red Wings are little more than Chicago-lite. A smooth skating puck possession team that succumbs under the physical pressure imposed by teams like our Ducks. Noteworthy, these same Wings went 6-4-1 against the NHL’s big bad three, composed of our Ducks, St. Louis Blues and the Los Angeles Kings.
It isn’t just our Ducks that these Red Wings give fits. Frankly, I’m baffled.
Kyle Palmieri says, “They are relentless in their pursuit. (of the puck)” is that it? You can’t hit what you can’t catch? In Wednesday’s game our guys got on top of these Wings often enough to deliver 20 hits in the 20 minutes of the first period. Following the first they caught the Wings with just 12 hits in the second, third and overtime periods combined.
The media is fond to point to Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard. The papers are full of stories about how Corey Perry is being kept off the score sheet. Big whoop. For as good as Howard has been, he’s only held our Ducks to less than three goals once in this series. Ducks GF is 16 goals in five games for a 3.20 GFA.
As good as our Ducks offense has been, they haven’t solved Jimmy Howard. He’s just no different from every goalie who’s ever played the game. Get him moving, screen him, force him to give up rebounds and get bodies into the low slot and Howard proves himself to be quite human after all.
Maybe it’s as czhokej shared last night, “Detroit is a very dangerous hockey team.” They have a lot of snipers, one of whom, Henrik Zetterburg has been held off the score sheet as well. Let them hang around and they’ll find a way with their relentless pursuit to make us pay. It isn’t just our Ducks but they’ve beaten our play-a-like teams as well.
Another 4-0 win would be sweet but something tells me these Wings will remain relentless to the final buzzer. Ducks fans don’t care how our guys close these Wings out. We care that they do and the sooner the better.
Note: If our Ducks and the Kings win their respective series, they will meet in the second round of the playoffs.
