Red Wings will be playing Nashville Predators in the first round of the 2008 NHL playoffs. This seems to be like the better choice, at least due to travel and inexperienced goaltending that Nashville has. Wings are limping into the playoffs with many injuries: - Tomas Kopecky is gone, won't be back for 4-6 months with torn MCL - Kirk Maltby is likely to miss a week due to hamstring and won't be ready for the beginning of the playoffs - Tomas Holmstrom is just coming back from groin injury and won't be 100% during the playoffs - Kris Draper is day-to-day with groin injury - Brad Stuart is out with a broken finger and may be ready for the 1st game - Dan Cleary missed 22 games and lost 15 lbs so it may take a while before he comes back into the top shape This should be a tight low-scoring series and Wings should be able to come up on top barring any significant injuries.
Encouraging sign has been that all those grand rapids guys have played fairly well, at leas not been dissapointing for me(Erikson, hartigan, etc). Biggest blow of course is, that "king of interference" is not up to date yet, but franzen has been hugely big surprize at homer's place. This series shouldn't last more than 5 games. Ok, six.
All Wings got are the youngsters coming up from GR and this new kid Abdelkader (spelling?) that they just signed from U of M. He had a pretty good game first time out while playing for free (under NHL rules an amateur can play one game for a team without a contract).
Right. Abdelkader is from MSU. I just tried to add him to my fantasy team for the last day of the season just because, but he isn't even on the list yet. No problem. I added Jon Michael Liles to represent my losing cause. Go Wings!
Franzen continues his hot streak with a goal in the 1st period and Wings are leading 1-0 after the 1st. They let a couple of good chances go by. Hopefully it won't hurt them.
Caught most of the 3rd. Wings rule. I love the hockey playoffs. It's 4 rounds of non-stop blood and guts mayhem. Zetts is King!
It wasn't full intensity hockey but red wing controlled the whole thing and won 3-1. Preds had 3 or so good chances: they cycled around dom's net but as long they were't able to send puck in front of net, their effort was pretty much wasted. rafalski had some giveaways but D was good. Most shots by preds were covered or blocked.
It never looked like the game was in doubt. I have to admit, I had some recollections of the Wings games where they struggled to score and ended up losing on some fluky goal, but this team is different. Babcock has prepared this team to win 1-0 and 2-1 games, which they showed today. Way to go.
Red Wings got outplayed by Nashville in the 1st period, but lead 1-0 on goal by McCarty. Hasek was spectacular to keep puck out of the net.
I see them talking at the break about the Nashville (near) goal. I thought the referee made the right call. It was literally too close to determine.
The refs has lost this game for a bit. They should've been a bit stricter with the whistles on all the activities once the play has been stopped. Some of the calls actually really made me wonder - that goal that they disallowed for Nashville, then penalty on Hasek. They also allow Tootoo too much free physical play after the whistle.
Both teams get breaks on the offensive end, but the Wings are still leading by 1 after the 2nd period - 3-2. Refs need to stop all the Nashville's extra curricular activities after the whistle. They are allowing them to take runs at the Wings players once the play has been blown dead and to take shots at the Wings players after the whistle.
