Wings Lose to Blues, Cranky Doodle Postgame

I’ve been awake since 5 am and I have a bruise twice the size of a puck on my thigh. This postgame is going to be bitchy.

Final Score: 3-2 Blues  (Hello Mr. Petrella!)

Important Things

• The first period was goalless, with two penalties for each team. Our power play didn’t look great here. The Blues cluttered up the blue line and the Wings had trouble entering.
• Stuart makes a monster of a save, batting the puck off the goal line, bailing out Jimmy and the rest of the team. This isn’t the first time Stuart has done this, and I’m wondering if we can play him as our backup instead of Conklin.

• The second period continues the penalties and starts the scoring. After Backes goes to the box for trying to eject Holmstrom out of the rink, Franzen scores a goal by getting right up against Elliott and shooting the puck up and over his shoulder.

• The next penalty is taken by Kindl, and Steen scores immediately from a pass from Arnott winning the faceoff. Both Helm and Stuart get tied up with Backes, leaving an open lane for Steen to put it in through the five hole.
• Shortly after that, Berglund rifles one in the top corner. Ericsson backs off on Berglund to sort of cover Perron (who was already being chased closely by Emmerton…) allowing Berglund a clear lane right to Howard.
• In the third, Kronwall is called for a delay of game, and Backes scores when he slips out from behind the Shitbox. The pass came from Oshie who was able to waltz down towards the goal while Stuart tried to chase him down.
• Abdelkader is sent to the box as Elliott wins the Golden Globe. If it wasn’t for the Southern-Belle-With-the-Vapors hand fling, he might have been in the running for the Oscar.

• Howard goes ragemode on Perron, causing a large scrum. Perron (surprisingly) goes to the box, and with some renewed intensity from witnessing Angry Jimmy, the Wings score one more goal thanks to Cleary and Hudler. Intensity didn’t drop after that goal, but unfortunately, it was too little too late, and we couldn’t put another past the drama queen.

Less Important Things

• I had forgotten about how much I hate that stupid goalie name chant. Thanks for reminding me of that, St. Louis.
• Frankly, we let the Blues play their run-over-roughshod game, and I think it got to us. We took a couple of retaliating penalties (Franzen, I’m looking at you), and the Wings got worn down in the third.
• Helm was awesome on the penalty kill, with the Blues second goal being the one exception. He buzzed around, blocking shots and killing time with the puck in the Blues zone. Conner also had a good moment or two on the PK.

Horsecop

This one is difficult. I want to give it to Helm, for good PK work, but then I’ll be called for favoritism. I initially wanted to give it Stuart for the first period save, but he negated that. And then I thought about Franzen, but his retaliating slash pissed me off. So I’m going to give it to Danny Cleary who was creating all sorts of trouble around the net tonight and just generally playing really hard.

Shitbox

Surprise! It’s Riggy! He managed to take two penalties, one by standing there like an idiot with his stick jammed in Sobotka’s armpit. He muddled his coverage on the last two goals. Pretty simple choice for me.

Coming Up Next

Coyotes at the JLA on Thursday. Petrella’s got that one. Woowoo.

Loss Candy

For the ladies, Jon Hamm

For the dudes, Mila Kunis

I’m sure that we’ve used them for loss candy before, but guess how many fucks I give about that? Hint: less than half.