Wings oust the Kings 5-2

[yave1964]

Thoughts on last nights Wings 5-2 Wings victory at the Joe against the Kings.

As usual i watched and studied a player for the other team, this time chosing to watch the kids on that Seventies line, Pearson and Toffoli. Toffol was the most impressive of the two to me, his shorty in the third was his third or fourth good scoring chance, he seemed opportunistic. Not that i didn't like Pearson, he seemed much more of a finisher IMHO with Toffoli being the creator. Great young line.

4-0 Wings barely halfway into the first, essentially game over. TWO count them TWO power play goals, both by Gus Nyquist. THe PP has been weak link on the team. If we get this going..... Nyquist, who had more goals than anyone in the game last year in the final half of the year has proven not to be a fluke with 7 goals in his first 10 games.

Tomas Tatar finally broke out of his slump with a tip in from the side of the net where he had snuck in to gather in a rebound, which was his meat and potatoes last year. Good to see.

Kronwall has been having his best season ever, IMHO. The points have been okay but the skill level from the point and the blue line seem to have found another level. Good to see a couple of power play points last night.

Datsyuk had two goals and an assist and led the Wings in shots. Magic indeed. Ericsson was thowing his big body around, keeping the Kings uncomfortable in front of the net.

Doughty was a well earned -3 last night, seeming out of sorts. Martinez played solid game, as did Stoll who were without Voynov, Gaborik and captain Kopitar.

My wife came in around five, six minutes in the game and over te next ten minutes she watched at the game while telling me about her day. After ten minutes, she asked me who was in net for the Wings. The Kings did not seem to get close enough to Howard for hr to tell it was Howard in net. One of those nights for the Kings.

One of those wonderful nights for the Wings.

[SwedeNmontana]

this team is allot better than people anticipated,  were looking allot more like the team the took the blackhawks to 7 games two years ago

[jammer2]

@yave1964  I don't know why, but I kinda half expected the members of last years kid line to struggle. Nothing to do with skill level, more of a 2nd year slump thing. The more I see of Sheahan, the more I think he's legit.

[SpikeDDS]

Tomas Tatar finally broke out of his slump with a tip in from the side of the net where he had snuck in to gather in a rebound, which was his meat and potatoes last year. Good to see.

Gotta give Tats a little more credit than that for that goal. It wasn't a rebound. He had his stick ready for a SLICK drop pass from Nike behind the net and elevated the puck just inside the post. Way more than a tap-in on a rebound.

True a goal's a goal, but that one took both anticipation and skill to score.

[SpikeDDS]

Kronwall has been having his best season ever, IMHO. The points have been okay but the skill level from the point and the blue line seem to have found another level. Good to see a couple of power play points last night.

I would agree that this, so far, has been Kronner's best post-Lidstrom season. I thought he played well when he was Kronwalling opposing plays with their heads down while Nick was behind him in our end, but there's more pressure and responsibility on him now. He appears to be learning to handle it better. This is his best since becoming THE veteran defenseman on this team.

[SpikeDDS]

Also of note was that we've had trouble scoring in the first so far this season until last night. Then again, this was the Kings' 3rd game in 4 nights, so we should have had the jump on them, and we clearly took advantage of it.

We'll see how we do this week, as I think we will have a 3rd game in 4 nights. A challenge for sure.