Wings-Avalanche: Detroit Puts Colorado on the Brink

“I’ll take that. I’ll take that any day,” says Red Wings forward Mikael Samuelsson. He was of course referring to his one missing and one chipped tooth, courtesy of fellow Swede, Peter Forsberg.

Midway through the second period, Forsberg incidentally caught Samuelsson in the face with his stick. Foppa was given a double-minor penalty for high-sticking, which resulted in the game-winning goal by Henrik Zetterberg.

Forsberg said after the game that he didn't think he had hit Samuelsson but couldn't argue the evidence.  He also thought that Samuelsson had exaggerated the play a little.

He'll take that.

The Red Wings once again played a full 60 minutes of playoff hockey and have put the Colorado Avalanche on the brink of a sweep.

Game 3's 4-3 victory saw the return of Forsberg and defenseman Scott Hannnon to the injury-depleted Colorado lineup, but also saw their regular season points leader Paul Stastney leave the game with a knee injury along with Ryan Smyth who was out for Game 3 with a foot injury.

Sound familiar? The Red Wings caught the injury bug last season during the playoffs when Niklas Kronwall and Mattieu Schneider went down. Still, teams are not allowed to make excuses come April and the Avalanche seem to be making plenty in this series with Detroit.

Detroit goaltender Chris Osgood once again out-shined Jose Theodore in net. The Wizard stopped 30-of-33 shots in his first game being truly tested. In Games 1 and 2 Osgood saw 21 shots and 20 shots respectively.

Theodore, in his first game back since recovering from the flu, allowed four goals on 35 shots.  This makes his GAA for the series 4.00, not a stat that wins games.

Osgood, though, saved the game when he stopped Colorado's David Jones in close with less than four minutes to play. The Avs would not get another shot on net.

Colorado opened the scoring when Cody Mcleod netted his first career playoff goal off of a rebound by Lansing native TJ Hensick.  Detroit responded by getting three unanswered goals by forwards Pavel Datsyuk (2) and Johan Franzen. Franzen has six goals in the series.

Zetterberg capped the scoring for Detroit and Andrew Brunette scored two for Colorado.