Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory

[yave1964]

  Wings up 3-2 late in the third against a still very dangerous Washington Capitals team,  Dylan Larkin had the puck on his stick and fired it over the glass giving the Capitals a power play. With 61 seconds to go, Oshie tied the game and then in overtime Trevor Daley was called for tripping giving the Caps yet another power play and Ovechkin who fired from everywhere all night beat Mrazek and the Wings managed a 4-3 loss in a game that they more than held their own but managed to lose anyway.

 

  When the Wings were sitting at 4-1 the pundits were still skeptical and said that lets wait and see how they do against some tougher competition, the next three were against the Bolts, Leafs and Caps. We went 0-2-1 which pretty much sums up where we are right now, a veteran team capable of beating up on lesser teams but not to be taken too seriously when facing stronger opponents. We have Vancouver in town on Sunday in the middle of an East Coast trip and I expect a nice win out of that.

 

  In last nights game, Mrazek was good, not great but good enough to win on most nights. Green and Kronwall were pretty bad together on a couple of goals and big chances but Green did a good job of carrying the puck as a 4th attacker much of the night which you have to do when playing a team like Washington, make them play defense which they do not like. The fans booed like crazy over the tripping call on trevor Daley which blew my mind, it was plain to see and an awful play at an awful time of the game for someone who played a physical game and looked good all night.

 

  Tatar is in one of his patented nice streaks right now and looks really good, Zetterberg is usually the best forward for either team when he is on the ice. Abdelkader continues to look out of sorts. Helm scored on a nice short handed goal, good to see him on the scorers sheet. Mantha fired the puck from everywhere and came close a few times.

  

  The revelation this year is Larkin who played over twenty minutes, took key faceoffs and more importantly and pretty much unnoticed again lead the Wings in special team ice time. He eight and a half minutes on the two special teams, he along with Mantha and Frk played 5:23 PP time as a unit and got some good chances compared to Zetterbergs unit along with Tatar and Abdelkader (with Nyke on the point) of 3:50 with Larkins unit clearly the first one. And only Glendening had more ice time among the forwards on the P/K he clearly has rediscovered his mojo and is owning the center position like they were hoping he would last year. He allows Nielsen to slot into the 3C slot so along with Glendening at the least the center position is come together nicely.

 

  On the Farm the Griffins lost 3-2 to the Wolves (I had them both on at the same time) and are mostly a team of AHL retreads right now although Svetchnikov did come back from injury and although he looked tentative at times looks like the sniper we expect him to be.

 

 so 4-3-1 through 8 games, 90 points over a season if you times it by ten which is better but not quite a playoff team which is how I see the boys right now. AA is on the way as is Bertuzzi for the 4th line so we can quit rotating the dreadful Witkowski and Booth in for 4 minutes a night. with the two of them and maybe Svechnikov somewhere around the second half hitting the top six on the wing we might have a push in us, we do have some decent defense on the farm and Dekeyser will be back in the mix soon so I haven't given up but we need to start learning how to beat these types of teams. We had one yesterday and let it slip away.

[SpikeDDS]

@yave1964 

 

I thought Mrazek had a DARN good game. He absolutely kept us in the game in the first. Made several difficult and key stops. True he was not always positionally right—and I wish he WOULD be, it would make him a better goalie—but in almost all cases made up for it and wasn’t totally bailed by things like an Oullet save. He scrambled well and the laid-out toe stop and cover on the side of the post on Backstrom was awesome.

 

Youre right about Larkin. What he is doing now at center he could not do last season. He has upped his game, and is becoming the “every-dayer” that we are counting on him to become. Sometimes, it means doing things that don’t make headlines. Z does these things all the time, but he ALSO finds ways to contribute on the score sheet. Larks needs to learn to do the same. He’s coming right along.

 

Truthfully, Tatar showed me something I’ve never seen him show before on his redirect of Larkin’s pass. That looked like it was prepared. They looked like they had worked on that in practice. Larks passed that hard on purpose. That was good stuff. Nice to see Tatar is capable of that. He’s deflected shots before, but not ones that required that much skill. Good to see.

 

Truthfully, this is how I thought this week would go other than Howie looking so bad against the Leafs. They didn’t play awful overall, but did have awful periods at times when they couldn’t find the O-zone to save their lives, particularly in Toronto. But there were positives. Daley is legitimately helping us back there. It will be good to have DDK back. That will help. And once AA gets up to speed, getting him in the mix should be fun to watch. Mrazek played pretty well the last 2 games. Howie needs to rebound after Toronto and return to form again, or this gets ugly. 

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

@yave1964

 

You know, I saw the title, and I was going to edit it, thinking, "Hey, he got it backwards....not the way the saying goes"

 

Then I realized this thread is about the Wings game against the Capitals.

I was like, "Oh wait...he is SPOT ON!"

 

Sorry for the interruption....carry on!