Recap: Detroit Red Wings 3, Edmonton Oilers 4

The Eurotwins played some with Mikael Samuelsson last night, but had more success with Dan Cleary. Sammy has hit one of the worst dry patches of his time here in Detroit. Valtteri Filppula finished with 19:45 in ice time, but remains all but completely ineffective. I don't know what it's going to take to get those two going.

Aaron Downey was twice the victim of some Academy Award-worthy acting on the part of Dwayne Roloson as he received two penalties for bumping the Edmonton goaltender. He made contact on both occasions, but was pushed into him by the Oiler defense each time. Still, it's not characteristic of Downey to put himself in that kind of position, which is further evidence that the Wings were off their game last night.

Even Nick Lidstrom looked a little off as he was beaten by the Oiler speed a couple times and just did not look as smooth as he does normally.

The Wings need to figure out a different power play strategy for times when Tomas Holmstrom is out of the lineup. No one else on the team can come close to doing what Homer does and when they try for the same plan of attack on the man-advantage despite his absence, that fact is never more obvious.

I hate it when teams play for the shootout like the Oilers did last night. They hardly tried to score in overtime, despite the fact that they had a couple solid chances. Their shootout record may look pretty impressive, but really it's pathetic, as they've had to rely on a gimmick to get nine wins. They have just six wins not tainted by the shootout, which is nothing to be proud of. The Wings, on the other hand, have 19 shootout-free wins.

The Wings have notched at least a point in each of their last nine games, but they were fortunate to get the last three. In Nashville, they barely held on and emerged with a win and at home last night, they were outplayed by the NHL's youngest team. Hopefully they'll fare better against Florida tomorrow.

Links

• Highlights
• HockeyTownTodd
• Red Wings TV interviews
  • Dominik Hasek
  • Henrik Zetterberg
  • Mike Babcock
• Media roundup at Snapshots

 (via On the Wings)

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