No Contest: Red Wings Tame The Wild, 5-0

Bleacher ReportDec 8, 2007

Icon Sports Media The boys from Hockeytown destroyed the impostors from Minnesota last night in one of their most dominating performances of the season. Henrik Zetterberg lit up Wild goaltender Josh Harding with three beautiful goals for his second career hat trick and Dominik Hasek showed the NHL that he’s back to form with his 77th career shutout.

… At the beginning of the game, the Wild were pretty effective at slowing the game down to a mind-numbingly dull poke-checking trap-fest. And they were very open about it, with Brian Rolston telling Larry Murphy that they were “trapping it up pretty good.” Indeed. But the Wings top line gradually wore the Minnesota defense down and finally cracked Harding at 17:53 of the first with Zetterberg’s first.

… Hank’s first goal came just after the expiration of a Detroit power play and on a delayed penalty. After the Wild failed to clear, the puck ended up on Pavel Datsyuk’s stick on the far side. He sent it across the ice to Zetterberg, who was all alone to Harding’s right. Hank picked the puck up from around the feet of the ref and then put it over Harding, who was still moving across the net on his knees. Larry Murphy told Hank at the intermission that he’d never seen anything like it, which was probably some hyperbole on Murph’s part, though it was a unique goal.

… Zetterberg’s second goal came at 5:31 of the second period, while the Wild were on the power play. After the Wild turned it over at the Detroit blueline, Hank took it up ice with Franzen trailing. He dropped the puck off to Johan, who ripped a shot wide of the net from the slot. Franzen picked up the rebound off the backboards and dished it to Zetterberg out front. Hank moved across the goalmouth right-to-left and waited until Harding committed before banking it in off the far post. The best of his three, in my opinion.

… 1:10 later, Jiri Hudler put the Wings up 3-0 on another Minnesota delayed penalty. With Hasek on the bench, Huds came over the boards as the sixth man. He found a dead spot at the bottom of the left circle and one-timed a pass from Filppula through Harding to score. I have to say, Hudler has a very hard shot when he gets a chance to use it.

… Johan Franzen’s goal at 9:50 came on the power play and was just a case of his being johnny-on-the-spot when Harding gave up a tiny rebound off a Kronwall shot. It was precisely the kind of goal you want to see Johan get.

… Zetterberg completed his hat trick just 41 seconds into the third period off the feed from Datsyuk. With Holmstrom skating across the front of the net, Hank’s one-timer from the right circle beat Harding after being tipped by his defenseman. For whatever reason, it seems like hat tricks don’t happen all that often in Detroit, while you hear of them pretty commonly around the rest of the league. There’s the Gordie Howe hat trick and the apparent Red Wings hat trick, which is two goals and a goalpost. It was great to see Hank get just the second in his career (the first came last February in the Wings’ 4-1 win over Phoenix), and I hope we’ll see that more often.

… With the Wings up 4-0, Todd Fedoruk tried to get Aaron Downey to fight at 12:58 of the second period and, surprisingly enough, Aaron accepted. However, he lost his balance and fell down before they could get started and the fight never happened. Fedoruk, to his credit, just tried to help Downey up rather than lay into him, but despite the willingness of both parties to go at it, the officials broke it up. Just over two minutes later, they went for it again and this time nothing interrupted them.

Both players got some good licks in, but Downey fell to the ice and probably lost. I was a little surprise Downey would even entertain the idea of a fight, given that it could have provided some spark to the Wild, but he must have felt they were in such control of the game that it didn’t matter. Fortunately for him, it did not come back to bite him.

… Dominik Hasek’s play at 17:41 of the third period was probably the highlight of the game. With the Wild on their way to their second straight loss, the puck ended up on the stick of Marian Gaborik at center ice and behind the Wings’ defense. Hasek, facing down a total breakaway, chose to come out and challenge rather than wait for Gaborik to arrive. Like he’s done so many times before, Dom attempted to slide-tackle the puck away and was successful, hitting the puck just before Gaborik collided with him.

(via Kukla’s Korner, my apologies for the song)

Gaborik hit Dom in his leg pads and went flying up and over, flipping and nearly landing on his head. Definitely a dangerous play, but a smart one by Hasek. Had Gaborik had his head up, he could have possibly maneuvered around the prone goalie, but as it was, he was caught looking down. Hasek was given a tripping penalty on the play and probably deserved it, but it was a worthwhile penalty, as Gaborik on a breakaway is far more dangerous than Gaborik on the power play. There is some talk that the League will review the play, but I think that’s just wishful thinking on the part of the Wild faithful.

Dom’s performance in the game was solid and encouraging, as he only had to face 19 shots yet did not give up a softy due to not having enough work. It seems he is adapting to the Wings’ defensive style, finally. It looks like he’s back, folks. He’ll get his third-straight start tomorrow against Carolina, while Chris Osgood will start Monday versus Nashville, at least according to Mike Babcock in his post-game comments. He says Osgood will go against the Preds because he usually plays well in Nashville, no other reason. Then, the rotation will start.

… Much hay has been made over the recent declaration of Minneapolis-St. Paul as “Hockeytown USA” by some Sports Illustrated hack. I won’t dignify the story with a link, though I will say a couple things about it.

“Hockeytown” insofar as it refers to Detroit, has always been a marketing thing first and foremost. It applied during a time when the Wings were the only competitive team in Detroit and thus received the most attention. With all four teams in Detroit at various levels of competitiveness, the accuracy of “Hockeytown” has declined a bit, but that does not mean it no longer applies. Despite the fact that the Joe no longer sells out, the Wings remain the team with the second-largest fanbase in the League (behind Toronto) and have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of their fans going to their games in every NHL city. Hockeytown, to me, refers to the fanbase everywhere, not just in Detroit.

Besides, the Wings have a pending trademark on the phrase, so whatever the Sports Illustrated writer says, it’s theirs.

… The Wings are on a roll, folks. They are as efficient as I’ve ever seen them and are dominating teams up and down the ice. It’s still early in the season, but it’s exciting to see.

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