RED WINGS WEEKLY OUTLOOK
On Monday October 17 the Red Wings defeated the San Jose Sharks 3-2 in OT. Jiri Fischer's goal from the top of the circle with less than a minute left in overtime gave Detroit their sixth win in seven games on the season. This was a great win for Detroit. I predicted a good game. San Jose is one of those teams who always plays Detroit tough no matter how well or poorly they are playing in a particular season. And with the revamped rules opening up the game a little bit more for the teams in the old mid-price range level (like San Jose) the unpredictability plays very well into lesser known teams and could be a huge boost for their year. I am glad I predicted this victory. It lets me know, as a good season indicator how well the Red Wings will do based on my understanding of NHL teams. This is a good feeling. Now I realize this is the middle of the week and a game has been played and the Red Wings have two games back-to-back this weekend, so I am giving you readers out there a look to this weekend and my predictions for their games.
Friday at home against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Detroit faces a somewhat gutted Ducks team. Still reeling from the loss of Paul Kariya two years ago taking a 7 million dollar pay cut to play for Cup-contenders Colorado coupled with the exhorbitant price paid for an aging Sergei Federov, who might not play due to a groin injury this weekend, leaves the Mighty Ducks a serious contender to lose to the Red Wings on Friday night. Don't forget the Red Wings hired ex-Ducks coach Mike Babcock to coach them from behind the bench this season. And so far it has been fruitful for the Red Wings. But the Ducks are tricky, especially at the Pond, but this is at the Joe, so I'm expecting a Red Wings victory and Stevie Y gets his first goal of the season.
On Saturday Detroit flies an hour to Columbus, Ohio to face the Blue Jackets. Columbus' offense this season has been anemic, to use a great sports cliche, but what do you expect with Rick Nash injured. This injury bug hitting the NHL seems to be pretty normal. I imagine the majority of the players spent their season off playing somewhere or at least trying to stay in shape, but nothing can prepare them enough for the grueling NHL game. However, it will be the second game in 24 hours for the Wings, which can cause a little fatigue, so Columbus could surprise the Wings and come out fresh and fast. Hopefully the Wings can counter with good defense and a strong outing from Manny Legace as well as a quick goal right out of the gate.
Let's hope the Wings can pull off a couple of victories this weekend. I realize its early, but Nashville has a couple of games this weekend against the struggling Blues and those pesky San Jose Sharks, and the way the Predators are playing, everyone is picking them to win out the division and possibly be one of the better teams in the conference this season. Adding to that notion, the Predators are still undefeated and have two games on the Wings already due to scheduling. So let's hope they get their first defeat of the year this weekend.
All right ice hockey fans! Those are my predictions and recaps from this week for the Detroit Red Wings hockey team!
3 Comments:
christopher:
i'm glad to see you are writing about the red wings on here. you're information is valuable. here are some additions, mostly regarding technology, who you already thanked god for in your more recent posting.
i caught detroit's visit to columbus on monday, it was playing, "inHD" on the OLN (outdoor life network? i still can't figure this out, but is basic cable i think). regardless, the HD medium is a fantastic uplift for the sport! i think much of the NHL's paststruggles stem from (have we had this conversation before?) the tension between the nature of hockey and the nature of televised sports. its flow does not mix well with the barrage of commercials (tv timeouts) television's most succesful sports (american football, basketball, olympics) feature. football, in the worldly sense, is the same way; or at least that is the argument i'd like to make about the ever slow growth of interest in american soccer.
getting back to hockey: HD and hockey, not be overly romantic, are a beautiful marriage. clarity is by far the biggest help, improving visibility of the entire rink, especially the puck. action is easier to follow. the widescreen format is much more complementing to the space of the hockey rink. moving the NHL to OLN (where there are less commercials, as i noted at least) allows for the game to be played in what i find to be hockey's more enthralling style: it allows the viewer to become closer to a "real/live" spectator's experience.
i remember going to my first red wing's game when i was in middle school with nick tochman and (they played buffalo) getting much more out of the experience than television. i don't mean the experience like wing's fans, loud music, communal feelings--i'm simply refer to the aspect of watching, to clarify.
like soccer, a hockey game's watchability requires the key element of time, to gain a certain understanding for the game being played at that moment. because hockey moves so much faster than most sports, this is hard (subs on fly/penalty box/the game is played on ice!) to do on television, at least for me.
your predictions on the wings/blue jackets game were pretty dead on. especially your mention on fatigue: the blue jackets were first to score on a power play if i remember correctly. shanahan (after coming out briefly due to a sore wrist) thankfully boosted the wings with his performance.
also: whats up with columbus and hockey?
i think you should do "wings coverage" on here more often.
finally, i've been meaning to send you an email about the english premier league, my predictions and hopes, who i have been following, etc. the season's beginnings have shown some surprises (arsenal injury plauged, wigan athletic fourth in the epl table--the club's first ever season in the premier league , everton at the bottom, chelsea's unbeaten in 10/11 games [winning streak broken after a tie to last place everton this passing weekend]).
ah so much! i guess that is what email is for.
jwm
and by the way: what is your take on the red wings spectacular start this season? does it cast a large shadow for the rest of the season? ...ah, hockeytown...
(verification that detroit is indeed, hockeytown: pam, a dental office receptionist is at grand river family dentistry, detroit, mi, is currently remodeling her family room. no, this is no TLC or HGTV .5 hour remodel/commercial. it is what makes detroit fans, detroit fans.
pam plans on putting up some new wallpaper, this weekend. her choice style: a red wings pattern, red and white, the millions of miniature logos covering the walls, enough to make your head spin. she's planning on adding all red wings memorabilia throughout the room, jerseys, tshirts, posters, cut outs, plastic shit, everything. pam is a dental office receptionist who works monday thru saturday, occassionaly sounds like she is/has been sleeping, hates dealing with dental insurance companies and loves her detroit red wings.)
In response Jonathan, I would love to do more. However, I hesitate because of the nature of this blog and who reads it. I imagine only you and me care about the red wings all that much. As for some comments on the season thus far, I think the Wings "are firing on all cylinders" to use an odd cliche about the relationship to Wings and a engine. Its very industrial promiseland-esque sounding. But it makes sense in the context of when the Red Wings came into existence. Datsyuk and Zetterberg are playing well, which is great news to Ken Holland and the management staff considering they almost went overseas. Draper is struggling, but Williams is making up for the offense and Draper still provides that morale booster. And whenever Yzerman gets on the ice everybody cheers, so I imagine they are feeling good about themselves. Babcock has the team playing well and having fun scoring goals and lighting the proverbial lamp. So let's hope it continues this weekend against the Blackhawks.
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