Red Wings Collapse in Third Period Against Avs

With nearly 10 minutes expired in the third period of tonight’s game and the Red Wings up 2-0 against Colorado, I left work feeling fairly confident in a Detroit victory.

I had planned to extol the virtues of Justin Abdelkader, who got his first regular-season goal in the first period. I had planned to praise Chris Osgood for buckling down and playing a complete game. I had planned on complimenting Detroit on a solid defensive effort.

Imagine my surprise when I turned on my computer at home and saw the headline “Detroit squanders early lead, loses shootout” on The Detroit News’ Web site.

As it turns out, Detroit allowed three third-period goals from the Avs, all in the last 11 minutes, and then scored one of its own to send the game to overtime. For the fourth straight time (dating back to February 15), Detroit lost a shootout and dropped the game 4-3 to the Avalanche. Their last shootout win came on February 2.

Losing leads has become a serial problem for Detroit. It’s still early, but this team will not go far in the playoffs without the ability to hold a lead. For two and a half periods, everything was great. Abdelkader and Todd Bertuzzi got the ball rolling. Then came the late-game collapse.

I fully expect more of this as the year wears on. A chance for two points against one of the Western Conference’s top teams goes down the drain tonight.

Now, to briefly extol the virtues of Justin Abdelkader as planned: The youngster has a chance to be a great Red Wing. Drafted in the second round after winning the Most Outstanding Player Award at the 2007 Frozen Four—he scored the game-winning goal for Michigan State—Abdelkader made a huge impact in last year’s Stanley Cup Finals.

He was the first rookie to score goals in two straight finals games since another former Red Wing, Dino Ciccarelli, did that in 1981 for Minnesota.

Now he’s getting his chances to play thanks to Johan Franzen’s injury, and the Red Wings will be better for it. He was doing little good at Grand Rapids. His first regular-season point came Thursday, and his first goal came tonight. Congrats, Justin. Hope you stay awhile.

Five more observations:

1. Welcome to Detroit, Todd. New winger Todd Bertuzzi scored his first goal as a Red Wing this season in the second period. It came early in the period after a power play carried over from the first.
2. Home ice fails. Detroit’s previous three losses on the year came on the road. This was the Wings’ first loss at Joe Louis Arena.
3. Variety is the spice of life. The Detroit goals came from three different players. The five assists were also spread among five players. Good to see production from more than one line.
4. May gets physical again. Brad May has played in four games this season and has gotten into two fights. I haven’t checked the stats, but that might be twice as many fights as Detroit got in all of last season.
5. Power outage. Detroit could have put the game away with a four-minute power play early in the third period, but instead went without a score and left the window open for Colorado to get back into the contest.

Best of the Wings:

Abdelkader. His first career goal and just one shot to try it.

Player of the game:

Cody McLeod. The Avs third-year left winger score Colorado’s first and third goal in the game, energizing the team and sending them to their shootout victory. He also won the fight with May pretty handily.

Word of the game:

Collapse. Fairly straightforward.

Next up:

At Phoenix, Thursday, 10 p.m.