Hossa's Late Goal Lifts Wings

Marian Hossa once again proved his worth as he scored with 55 seconds left in a tied game to put the Red Wings up 3-2. The goal sealed the deal for the 50th win of the season and a much needed win following three straight L's.

Jiri Hudler opened the scoring for the Wings at 11:21 of the 1st with a one time shot past Backstrom on a pass from Zetterberg. Hudler showed his great sense of rink awareness by positioning himself in the low slot and waiting for Zetterberg to make a play to him. It was his 23rd of the season.

Pavel Datsyuk added another goal for the Wings, his 32nd, on an excellent play. Pavs outwaited Backstrom while skating across the front of the goalmouth and backhanded one top-shelf at the last moment, putting the Wings up 2-0. The Wings would not escape the first unscathed though as a failed clearing attempt by Chris Osgood landed right on the stick of enforcer Cal Clutterbuck. Clutterbuck, who leads the league in hits, showed his quick thinking and fired the puck on net while Osgood was still in motion back to the crease, 2-1 Wings after 1.

Marian Gaborik tied the game late in the second period on a scramble in front of Ozzie's crease. Bodies were everywhere but Gaborik somehow squeaked the puck through the mess and made it 2-2 going into the final period.

Enter Marian Hossa. Hossa had 5 shots on goal during the game and added an assist on Pavel's goal. That wasn't enough for him though and he showed why he's the $7M man. Datsyuk passed to Holmstrom who brought it into the offensive zone and dropped it off to Hossa. Marian wasted no time snapping a shot past Backstrom for his 38th of the year and the late Detroit lead.

The Wings outshot the Wild 44-23 and Osgood stopped 21 for his 25th win of the year. Osgood made some great saves and maybe it came by way of extra confidence after Babcock named him the starter for the playoffs.Both teams stayed out of the box, only 8 total minutes during the game.

Player of the game: I'll have to give this to Datysuk and Hossa. Both had incredible goals and an assist each. Hossa with the slight edge for his +2. Other candidates are Hudler and Zetterberg, who registered 9 shots on goal and an assist.

Other notes: It was good to see Chris Chelios (or as I affectionately call him-Methuselah) playing and skating so well before the playoffs. He will be needed big time in the run to the Cup with Lilja being injured and Rafalski having some problems.

Game Preview: Wild @ Wings

Detroit (49-19-9, 107 pts)
Minnesota (37-32-9, 83 pts)

Minnesota Outlook: The Wild are a bit of a jigsaw when it comes to predicting what you're gonna get out of them. They're second in fewest goals allowed in the league, as I write this San Jose allowed 2-knocking them down to 3rd. So they've allowed 189 goals but have only scored 11 more than they've allowed, but at least they're in the positive range (unlike fellow 8th seed candidates St. Louis, Nashville, & Edmonton). They're 2 pts down for a playoffs spot and are gonna be hungry for the playoffs coming into Hockeytown.

Detroit Outlook: The wings have been a bit on a slide recently (0-3, 5-4-1 last 10), but then again we don't need to win any of these games to keep our playoff hopes afloat. Vancouver/Calgary/Chicago can't catch us for 2 seed and we could finish with the 1 spot and home ice for the duration of the playoffs. Still we very much need to start getting back on the winning path. You can only take it so easy for so long or you're just going to end up hurting yourself for the start of the postseason. I don't know if Rafalski will be back but we sure did miss him in the lineup against the Blues :-/

What to Look for: A relatively low scoring game. From the Wild: Mikko Koivu, Andrew Brunette, Owen Nolan, Marian Gaborik, and the impenetrable Nick Backstrom. From Detroit: Marian Hossa, Johan Franzen, Nick Lidstrom, and Jiri Hudler.

Puck drops at 12:30 PM ET, Game is on NBC! Yay for watching it on a regular tv instead of my laptop!

Game Preview: Preds @ Wings

How do you follow a loss to the NHL's worst team? Hopefully its with a win over one of the better post All-Star break teams this season and a division rival.

Nashville Outlook: Nashville has won two in a row and are 4-2-4 in their last 10. That third column in that line is very important. They had the chance to win 4 games but were unable to win them in overtime/shootout. Thats a four point turnaround no matter which way you turn it, all losses or all wins in regulation. All losses in regulation could have very well put them out of playoff contention but the fact that they were able to get a point out of all four of those games, is one of the reasons they're still in the playoff race.

Detroit Outlook: Like I said, how do you follow a loss to the worst team in the league? You know that that type of loss is demoralizing. I didn't see the entire game but from what I did see, we were completely outplayed by the Islanders. It looked like a classic case of role reversal. They looked like the team in 1st place in the league while we looked like the last place team. Hopefully it was just "one of those nights" but I think it may be part of a bigger problem. Our defense and goaltending has been suspect all year and it could be showing more weakness as the postseason draws near. Good news? We didn't have to win. Bad news? We should have won.

What to Look for: A high energy, refocused, and reenergized Red Wings as Babcock tries to get us back in playoff shape. From Nashville, watch for playmaking by Jason Arnott, J.P. Dumont,Shea Weber, and the underrated Pekka Rinne. From Detroit, watch for Jiri Hudler, Marian Hossa, Mikael Samuelsson, and Nick Kronwall. Kronner made a name for himself in the playoffs last year for laying out Predators players.

Hopefully Shea Weber doesn't bash any of our players heads in again in our pitiful attempts to fight.

Puck drops at 5 PM ET. I won't be able to watch it due to prior plans but as always, GO WINGS!

Oilers and Free Agent Talk

My bad on not posting a follow-up for the Oilers game. I fell asleep at 1-0 Oilers and woke up at a 3-2 final for the Red Wings. Awesome result, I just wish I had seen us storm back and take the win.

Not much going on this week and I haven't posted much. Been busy with school and work and the like.

Nevertheless, I found a good article on the offseason possibilities for the Wings:

http://www.freep.com/article/20090325/SPORTS05/903250433/1048/SPORTS/No+rush+in+signing+Hossa++Franzen

I wish we could keep Hudler, Hossa, and Franzen but it might be impossible.

Game Preview: Wings at Oilers

Red Wings (48-16-9, 105 pts)
Oilers (35-28-9, 79 pts)

Lets see how the Wings can respond from a 5-3 loss to Calgary last night against a tough Edmonton team.

Edmonton outlook: The Oilers are kind of treading water at this point, hoping to hold on to that 7 spot. In all likelihood they won't climb any higher than 7 but could very easily drop out of the race all together. They're 4-2-4 in their last 10 and haven't had much recently to celebrate about. Lubomir Visnovsky, one of the Oilers best players, has been out of the lineup since February following surgery. Erik Cole going back to Carolina has left a gap yet to be filled and the Oilers may be regretting it. Patrick O'Sullivan, who came over in the deal for Cole, has only tallied 3 points in 9 games, not enough for the struggling Oilers.

Detroit outlook: With only 9 games left and 8 of the games against +.500 teams, this stretch will be a good test for how well we can prepare and stay healthy for the start of the playoffs. The good news for tonight's game is that we're 3-0 against Edmonton this season, outscoring them 16-6. Hopefully we can continue our streak against them and catch up to the Shark a little bit. Important thing to watch is how Ozzie and Conklin respond after giving up a total of 5 goals. We have a good road record while the Oilers have a worse home record than away.

What to look for: Detroit, as I always say, plays puck possession hockey and can force you to take penalties. This could be a big part of tonight's game as the Oilers take about 15 minutes worth of penalties per game and have allowed 7 of the 16 goals against the Wings on the powerplay. From Edmonton: Ales Hemsky (leads EDM in G,A, Points), Shawn Horcoff, Dustin Penner, and Denis Grebeshkov are all big parts of the Oilers success. From Detroit: Marian Hossa, Pavel Datsyuk, Jiri Hudler, and Brad Stuart.
Also, look for Zack Stortini to mix it up physically for the Oilers. I would like to see a Wing step up physically, but then again, Stortini would just give us another player with Lilja symptoms.

Puck drops at 9:30 PM ET and as always, GO WINGS!

Flames Down Wings 5-3

The Flames got the best of the Red Wings again, posting 5 goals on 27 shots. The Red Wings put 3 on the board on 33 shots but Miika Kiprusoff was too much.

Dion Phaneuf opened the scoring for the Flames by firing a drop-pass from Daymond Langkow off the tip of Ozzie's glove to give the Flames a 1-0 lead midway through the 1st. Ozzie let in a pretty weak goal to Jamie Lundmark and Langkow got his second assist of the game early in the 2nd period. The Flames got another goal a few minutes later as Mike Camalleri scored a powerplay goal and ended Ozzie's night, bringing in Conklin.

Pavel Datsyuk got the Wings back within 2 with his 30th of the season on a shot from a tough angle, following a rebound given up by Kiprusoff. This is when I kind of fell asleep. Glencross scored for the Flames, making it 4-1, and then Johan Franzen scored (31st) to make it 4-2. Jiri Hudler scored less than two minutes later to make it 4-3. But it wouldn't be enough, the Flames added another goal and another victory, leaving the Red Wings with a bitter taste in their mouth heading into Edmonton.

Player of the game: Pavel Datsyuk

Wings Blast Thrashers 6-3

The Red Wings got big time production out of its star players as they scored three goals in the third to put the game too far out of the reach of the Thrashers.

Brian Rafalski got the scoring started towards the end of the first as he put a pass from Johan Franzen past Kari Lehtonen for his 10th goal of the year. Datsyuk scored the second goal of the game and his 29th of the year from the top of the faceoff circle on odd man rush with Franzen with 8 minutes left in the 2nd period. Jiri Hudler got the Wings on the board for the second time in the period, just two minutes later on a breakway spawned from Brett Lebda's great length of the ice pass, putting the Wings up 3-0 heading into the final period.

The third period saw both teams trading goals three times. Franzen scored his 30th of the year and a powerplay tally on a backhand shot off of a rebound. The Thrashers would get a powerplay goal of their own as Bryan Little put the Thrashers on the board. Hossa would then score his 36th of the year on a pass from Zetterberg as they stretched the defense horizontally and threw off Lehtonen's positioning. Slava Kozlov scored the next goal for the Thrashers on a slapshot over former teammate Chris Osgood's shoulder for a second Thrashers powerplay goal. Hossa had another breakaway and nearly scored but ended up drawing too many Thrashers players to the boards, allowing a pass to a wide open Dan Cleary in the slot for the 6th Wings goal. The final goal of the game was scored by Colin Stuart but it was too little too late for the Thrashers as the Red Wings put up their 48th win of the season and earned its 105 point.

Ozzie had some outstanding saves and is starting to make me believe that he's just really gearing up for the playoffs. He did let in 3 goals but in my opinion, only one was uncontrollable. And when you get 6 goals a game you can afford to let 3 in I suppose. I really like to see the continuing success that Rafalski has had in Detroit. He's one of the least talked about defensemen in the league for his skill set. He can play as a good of a defensive game as anyone and can also score like a forward on the other end of the ice.

Player of the game: Henrik Zetterberg (4 A), responsible for setting up 4 of the 6 goals, and Johan Franzen (1 G, 2 A)

Other notes: Second straight game the Thrashers have allowed 6 goals. The Red Wings now have 7 players at 50 points or more; Kronwall is 6 away from joining.