Congrats to the Red Wings

As you probably know by now, the Detroit Red Wings are the 2008 Stanley Cup Champions, having defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins four games to two.

It's a well-deserved victory for the team that was clearly the best in the league all season long. Sure, there were slips and slides along the way, but the organization stayed calm through it all and one never got the sense that the ship was even in danger of being blown off course, let alone sinking. (In this post from way back in February I took a look at the Wings while they were in the midst of a losing streak, and asserted that there was little for their fans to worry about.)

The Wings have been consistently excellent for the past fifteen years, and the fact that they have won "only" four championships in that time is a testament to just how difficult it is to bring the Stanley Cup home. For fans of teams that have consistently enjoyed outstanding regular seasons only to have difficulty advancing in the playoffs (ahem), it is interesting and perhaps comforting to note that during these stellar seasons the Red Wings, very widely regarded as the top organization in the league, followed division championships with first-round flameouts four times, losing to the Sharks in 1994, the Kings in 2001, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003 (in a sweep, no less), and the Edmonton Oilers in 2006.

Despite their seemingly permanent roost at the top of the standings, I've never really disliked the Wings. Even after they beat the Sharks last year, I didn't summon a grudge against them of the type that I alluded to here. Maybe it's because when you're a fan of something, the way I am of ice hockey, there's always something enjoyable about seeing your sport played with such excellence.

Congratulations also to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who granted all hockey fans a game to remember forever with their extraordinary Game Five rally, sending a series that looked to be a sure sweep to a respectable six games. (And let's not forgot how close they came to tying the score in the waning seconds of Game Six.) Despite the fact that the organization faces some offseason questions, I'm confident this team will be back to the finals sooner rather than later.

Sunday Scraps (March 2nd, 2008)

Fun Conquers All

In the third period of this afternoon's game at United Center in Chicago, Blackhawk defenseman Duncan Keith found himself breaking alone into the Vancouver Canucks' zone, defended by veterans Matthias Ohlund and Kevin Bieksa. Keith tried a nifty between-the-legs spinny move in an effort to beat the defense. It was a cheerfully optimistic effort which utterly failed, and for good measure Bieksa clobbered Keith as punishment for his cheek, but the move was characteristic of the youthful exuberance, even naivety, with which the Chicago Blackhawks defeated the grim, anxious Vancouver Canucks this afternoon by the score of 4-1.

The Blackhawks have fallen to the very margins of the playoff race, but it's still been a very promising year for this very young team. With veterans Martin Havlat, Robert Lang, and Yanic Perrault out with injuries, the squad that took the ice today looked even younger than the Hawks typically have this season. One of the Rogers Sportsnet analysts calling the game for Vancouver joked that it was like the Canucks were playing the Rockford Icehogs (Chicago's AHL affiliate). Today the Hawks were able to channel all that youth into hockey energy, and they controlled almost all of the play. They threw the body, won the battles along the boards, fought with gusto, and swatted pucks out of the air and into Vancouver's net as if they don't understand that that's hard.

The Canucks, on the other hand, are still very much in the playoff picture, but have had some grim outings lately. Vancouver has lost its last two games in overtime after giving up third-period leads. At this time of year you absolutely have to beat the teams behind you in the standings, and I'm certain that the Canucks approached today's game as a must-win.

But they played like a team expecting things to go wrong, and it was a self-fulfilling prophecy...they were tight and never got into a groove, allowing themselves to be pushed around by Chicago from wire to wire. I had a mental image of them standing on a precipice, having just lost their balance, and windmilling their arms in terror in an effort not to fall.

The broadcast team alluded to the sheer quantity of one-goal games that Vancouver's reliance upon Roberto Luongo and a tiny dram of scoring obliges them to play, and one wonders if they aren't beginning to crack under the constant pressure.

The Canucks today were more talented and vastly more experienced than the Hawks, but the Hawks looked like they were having infinitely more fun and in the end that made all the difference.


Wings-Sabres Observations

The Red Wings visited Buffalo today, having gone 1-8-2 in their prior eleven games. East vs. West matchup involving a Western team other than San Jose, so of course I was pulling for the Sabres to do the Sharks and everyone else out west a favor. Alas, the Wings gave the Sabres a pretty good drubbing today, and came out with a 4-2 win.

Much like the other night against the Sharks, the Wings were victimized by a bizarre goal involving the officials allowing play to continue when (almost) everyone was anticipating a whistle. With about four minutes gone in the third period and Detroit leading 3-1, there was a hard hit along the boards, followed by some face-washing, followed by some more face-washing, followed by a few punches. It certainly looked like a melee was imminent, and a linesman had already stepped in to start prying players apart. However, at no time was the whistle blown, and after several seconds the puck, which had been generally disregarded in all the ruckus, squirted free. Jason Pominville scooped it up and bore down on a cruelly marooned Dominic Hasek, beating him glove side to pull the Sabres to within one. Tonight, however, the Wings weathered the bad break...that was Buffalo's last marker, and the Wings added an insurance goal later to provide the final margin.


Rick Jeanneret

One of the great things about watching Sabres games is that you get to hear the action called by Rick Jeanneret, one of the legends of the business. It's pretty much the equivalent of listening to Vin Scully call a Dodger game. He has that energetic tenor that is perfectly pitched for hockey play-by-play. There's a cool video here with some highlights from his great career.

Controversy

"Referees don't normally cheer for teams, but I'll guarantee you, they're cheering for Detroit to tie this game up." (Detroit Red Wings Analyst Mickey Redmond, February 29th, 2008, 13:21 of the third period.)

Absolutely @&%!#$ing right, Mickey.

The Sharks defeated the Detroit Red Wings tonight 3-2 at Joe Louis Arena. Leading the game 2-1 midway through the third period, the Sharks were attacking the Detroit net when a shot deflected up and hit the netting behind the goal. The puck flopped back down onto the ice just outside the goal mouth, and Devin Setoguchi poked it in. The whistle was never blown, the referee pointed at the puck in the net, and the Sharks were ahead 3-1.

The Red Wings, naturally, protested, and they certainly had a case. But unfortunately for them, rulings on whether or not the puck leaves play are not subject to video review (much as, say, pass interference is not subject to review in the NFL). The officials really had no choice but to award the goal to the Sharks, who were guilty of no crime other than continuing to play when there was no whistle.

Missed calls like this are simply part of hockey, or indeed of any sport--they are a consequence of having human, fallible officials. In this sense having the puck go into your net after the puck leaves play but isn't blown dead isn't really a whole lot different than, say, having an official accidentally obstruct a clearance attempt and thereby inadvertently hold the zone for the opposing team. Such a thing happened to the Sharks earlier this season in a game against Boston, and the Bruins went on to score the game-winning goal off that sequence.

So what happened tonight wasn't so much unfair officiating as it was human officiating. Things like this will happen now and then, and if I were a Wings fan I'd be hopping mad. The officials no doubt felt bad about it, but they should not have let this influence how they called the game from then on.

Instead, they pulled one of these.

By sending Christian Ehrhoff to the box on a galactically weak interference call with Detroit already on the power play, thus handing the Wings a 5-on-3 that of course they immediately converted, the referees demonstrated that they were in fact thinking precisely what Mickey Redmond thought they were thinking. They crossed the line from human officiating to bad officiating. Inadvertently penalizing one of the teams due to a mistake is just something that happens every now and then and is unavoidable. Deliberately penalizing one of the teams to "even things up" should never happen and is totally avoidable.

I should point out, since I've mentioned Redmond in this post, that I have no quarrel whatsoever with the Red Wings' broadcast team's passionate disputation of the Setoguchi goal. Even if the play had been more marginal (and it looked pretty clear to me that it went off the net) I would have no quarrel with them. I strongly believe that hometown broadcast teams should cheerfully and unapologetically call games in a way that is biased towards their own squad. Seriously. (Broadcast teams on nationally-televised games are a different story).

Disputed goal or no, the Sharks played well tonight and deserved to win. Teams that are playing well tend to get the breaks, and that's what happened in this one.

Blues tomorrow, although I won't be able to watch because I'm having the 'rents over to the new place for dinner (finally).

Measured and Found Wanting

Ice hockey is a game of mistakes. The action of the play is free-flowing, possession of the puck is tenuous at best, turnovers occur constantly. It's all about minimizing the damage caused by your own mistakes and taking full advantage of your opponent's. Tonight, after largely controlling play for the first twenty minutes plus, the Detroit Red Wings somehow, against all reason and justice, found themselves tied 2-2 with the San Jose Sharks, and with their opponents in possession of all of the momentum.

Then, the Sharks made a series of mistakes, mostly of the discipline-related variety, and the Wings drove the advantage that had been dealt to them lethally home. Almost before you knew it a 2-2 game had turned into a 5-2 game, and Detroit eventually coasted to a 6-3 win.

That's why the Wings are the class of the league. Every hockey game between reasonably competitive opponents has an ebb and flow, and we saw that tonight. The first period of the game was tight and listless--some of the dullest hockey I have seen all season, frankly--but the Wings were clearly in charge, not even conceding a shot to San Jose until more than seventeen minutes had passed. After a short-handed goal at the beginning of the second period put the Sharks down 2-0, they mounted a rally, with newly-recalled Devin Setoguchi tipping in a Sandis Ozolinsh drive to make it 2-1, and Jonathan Cheechoo showing a nose for the goal and scoring to make it 2-2. Now, San Jose seemed to have the momentum. Ebb, flow.

Then the Sharks began a grim march to the penalty box, sometimes two-by-two, and the Nicklas Lidstrom-led Red Wings power play made no mistake about making San Jose pay.

(At this time I must mention Detroit goalie Dominik Hasek's dreadful dive in the course of this sequence. Go find the replay on the internet if you want to look at it--essentially, Christian Ehrhoff skated by Hasek behind the Detroit goal and Hasek went down like a stuntman in a western feigning being blown up by dynamite. The Sharks didn't lose tonight because of this call--they made a whole series of other errors, too lengthy and depressing to tabulate--but for the sake of the quality of play in the league, players who flop like Hasek need to be suspended. If the officials on the ice miss the call and fail to hand out the minor for unsportsmanlike conduct, fine, whatever, it's a fast game and they miss some calls, but the dive is so obvious on the videotape that there's no excuse for the league's disciplinary committee not to take action.)

It's becoming increasingly difficult to regard the 2007-2008 edition of the San Jose Sharks as a Stanley Cup contender in any except the broadest sense (that is, the sense that any team making the playoffs has a legitimate chance to reach the finals). Except for a few stretches, the Wings dominated San Jose tonight. I wrote in my mid-season assessment about the nagging feeling that the Sharks, even when they were putting together their remarkable road winning streak and sitting in second place in the West, were living on borrowed time. This makes four losses in a row now, and one gets the sense that that time is running out.