Nashville at Red Wings (The Live Blog)

The title of this post is the problem with this post.  Nashville’s in town.  Who gives a damn?  Who cares?  It’s bleeping Nashville.  This is the problem with playing in the West.  Every night it’s Nashville, or Columbus, or Edmonton or some other team you just could not care less about if you gave not caring everything you had to give.  If, in other words, you didn’t care 110%. 

I’ve said it before: What the National Hockey League needs is an Original Six division.

Its almost ironic that we go from Nashville tonight—a team with no history and no tradition—to Montreal—the most storied of all NHL franchises, the most storied of all franchises period except for the hated New York Yankees, in 48 hours.  It’s the first time in 2 years to Rouge, Blanc and (whatever the French word for Blue is), have been in Detroit in 2 years.

Hell, when I was growing up, Montreal would come to town 7 times a year and every night at the Olympia was a great night because if it wasn’t Montreal playing Detroit it was Toronto.  Or Boston, or the Rangers, the Bruins or the Blackhawks.  Ah, for the good old days.

And the proof  of what I’m saying is tonight not in the pudding but in the seats.  More correctly, the truth is in the unoccupied seats, of which there are thousands.  This is the smallest crowd I’ve seen in this arena probably in nearly 30 years.  The smallest since the early 80’s when the Wings were brutal and we used to wonder what this place would be like if there were actually fans in the Upper Bowl.  So many empty seats here tonight, and on Dollar Hot Dog Night, to boot.  (I was going to end that last sentence with “no less” but “to boot” sounds slightly more Canadian and therefore slightly more hockey-like.)

In a totally unrelated note, I just came up with my best hockey-related idea, like, ever.  How about this?  When you score a shorthanded goal, your guy gets to get out of the penalty box.  What’s not to like?  You get a little extra reward for scoring the shorty and it would add a little offense (and therefore a little extra risk-taking) to the penalty kill (or is its called in the business and when I say “the business” I mean “the industry", the PK).

As an aside, as long as the boys are giving their all down there, we may as well mention that they trail the Predators (Chris Hanson’s favorite team, we presume) 2-1 as we enter the 3rd period.  Nashville scored in the last minute of the first period and in the first minute of the second and Detroit have (we’re trying hard to speak Canadian tonight so its Detroit “have” not Detroit “has” ) been trying to catch up all night.  Detroit are (not Detroit “is”) 2-6-0 (.250) when trailing after 2.  And here’s something that doesn’t apply to tonight’s game at all, but since we looked it up the other night we may as well use it: Detroit had been 13-0-2 (.933) when scoring first this season until they scored first in their last game here Monday against San Jose but lost 5-2.  So now they are 13-1-2 (.875) when scoring first. 

Standing, literally, in the Wings’ way tonight is Nashville goalie Anders Lindback.  It turns out he’s one of the tallest goalies in National Hockey League history—6’-6”.  Even when he drops into the butterfly, even when he’s down on his knees, he still covers an awful lot of net.  He and Wings goalie Jimmy Howard entered play tonight with identical save percentages: .916. 

Detroit’s on the power play now with 13-and-a-half left and with Detroit still down a goal.  This is what is known as a “key moment in the game” or, if your prefer, a “turning point”. 

No turning point for Detroit.  Dan Cleary took a cross-crease pass and had a chance to just stuff it in and tie the score, but he fanned.  But, Nashville just got caught cheating again, so just like that, Detroit goes on the power play again.  There’s 11:03 left.  Another (potential) turning point…

Another heart-wrenching disappointment, another power play failure for Detroit, which is (sorry, which “are”) 0-4 on the PP tonight.

The game just ended.  J.P. Dumont scored, unassisted, on a 3-on-1 with about 5 minutes to go so now its 3-1 Nashville and the Wings aren’t coming back in this one.  This will be the first time all season (26 games) that the Wings have lost games back-to-back in regulation time.  In other words, the first time all season the Wings have gone two games without picking up a point.

I hope the dollar dogs were good, at least.  We’ll chat you up Friday night when Les Canadien are here.  Oh, I almost forgot.  I get to pick the 3 Stars for that game.  I look forward to showing those Montreal writers how its done!

(Johan Franzen scored with Howard pulled and 1:33 left to make it 3-2 and to make the finish interesting, but Franzen, set up in front with seconds left couldn’t finish a second time and time ran out.)