The joy of having a Red Wings fan as an editor is that I get a look into the mind of an interesting fan base. Here are her concerns from the first two games against the Blues in Stockholm over the weekend. Following her 3 paragraphs of distress are a counter-point; a simple explanation why all the Red Wings fans that are freaking out should just grab a beer and relax. What do you think? Should the two losses be cause for concern for Wings fans or was it nothing more than a couple of regular season games?
Point:
After the past 2 Wings games, if I could say one thing to the team at this point it would simply be “Play a full 60 minutes”. As a side note, I would pull Ken Holland aside and say, “Whoever told you to resign Bertuzzi should be fired.”
No, Lidstrom and Kronwall weren't really wearing these jerseys to start the season...
Game One: The “home opener” started out pretty good. Yes, they squandered away a 2-man advantage that lasted over 1:30 but they were still able to nab a shorthanded goal and had a 2 goal lead in the second period. Then suddenly, everything fell apart. Three goals in a five minute span. It rendered me speechless, which is not an easy thing to do. The problem? Well, we could start with Bertuzzi being a minus 2, along with Lebda, Cleary and (shockingly enough) Zetterberg. I think we can all agree that the line combination of Bertuzzi, Z and Cleary is not gelling well at all. The other problem is also pretty obvious: keep up the tempo that you start with in the first period. Yet even after seeing the problems I wasn’t too worried. We dropped the home opener last year too.
Game Two: Unfortunately it was just more of the same. The Wings came out flying, looking good. Everything was fine and dandy until the middle of the second period. Bertuzzi backing up from plays over and over again. Howard absolutely fell apart in goal. The penalty kill was bad; the power play was mediocre at best.
Counter-Point:
The two games in Sweden were just that, TWO GAMES. Everyone loses two games—even the mighty Detroit Red Wings. There’s no reason for anyone to start jumping off the Ambassador Bridge—yet. Besides, that second game was a road game. Everyone knows that the crowd doesn’t mean anything, but the road jerseys are just harder to play in. It’s a scientific fact.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the all of the Swedish members of the Red Wings had other things going on besides hockey for their stay in Stockholm. Family asking for tickets, seeing friends, playing hockey in their homeland—there were a ton of PERIPHERAL things going on around the team. I’m not saying its right, I’m just saying it happened.
The fact is that the Red Wings were playing a good team that for all intents and purposes was the hungrier team for the majority of the game. It depends on how you want to look at it. Did the Red Wings come out how they will every game and just fade? Or did the Blues just start out slow and right the ship for the rest of the game. I know that Red Wings fans will think that it’s all about THEM (that’s not just Wings fans—everyone thinks it’s all about THEIR team all the time), but there was another team on the ice.
I know that Red Wings fans won’t want to hear this, but the only long-term problem that came from this weekend is the St. Louis Blues. The Red Wings will be fine; no one in Detroit needs to worry about their team. They’re always there at the end of the year and with their roster, they’ll be there at the end again this year. They lost two games in the beginning of October. It’s less than ideal, but it’s not like they just lost two games in a row in May. That’s much more troublesome!
They might want to start worrying about the Blues though.
Matt Reitz
Matt Reitz is an NHL Writer for ProHockeyTalk on NBCSports and the Editor-In-Chief here at ViewFromMySeats.com. When he's not shoving a mic in the face of NHLers or explaining why home teams should wear white, he's usually trying to figure out what song to play next on his iPod. It's a never-ending job.
