Henrik Zetterberg NHL’s First Star

For the first time all season, a Red Wing is one of the NHL’s 3 Stars of the Week. NHL.com has the write-up:

Zetterberg capped his best week of the season with the best night of his career Saturday — he had his fourth career hat trick and added two assists for a five-point night in the Wings’ 7-4 win against Anaheim. For the week, he had 3 goals and 6 assists, was plus-5 and scored the winning goal in back-to-back games.

So, wait a second. He had a hat trick on Saturday…had three goals for the week…but winning goal in back-to-back games? Someone got their math wrong. Zetterberg actually had four goals and five assists this week. His eight goals are second most on the Red Wings, one behind Tomas Holmstrom, but he leads the league in game-winning goals, with four. The article continues:

Not coincidentally, the Red Wings won all three of their games last week. The Wings and their star center are both on their best streaks of the season; he has 5 goals and 11 points in Detroit’s last six games, and the Wings are 5-1-0 in that span. It took Henrik Zetterberg a while to find his scoring touch. But the 2008 Conn Smythe Trophy winner is now on a roll — and so are the Detroit Red Wings.

Ilya Kovalchuk and Ryan Miller were the second and third stars.

Niklas Kronwall also gets a shout-out in the form of an honorable mention of sorts. He’s listed under “three more players who have been hot,” indicating he may have also gotten some 3 Stars votes.

The big scorer on Detroit’s defense isn’t future Hall of Famer Nicklas Lidstrom — it’s Kronwall, who had the best offensive week of his career with 3 goals and 4 assists for 7 points while going plus-5.

We mentioned Nik Jr.’s hot hand, as well, and suggested he keep putting pucks toward the net since they seem to be going in for him.