WING THINGS
The Wings bested the Stars on Saturday night to trade places with the Maple Leafs in the Atlantic Division standings. Two games into the second half of the season, the Wings are in a tight race in the middle of the division standings. Montreal has a five-point lead on the Winged Wheel for third, the Leafs are only one point behind, and the streaking Sens are making a push to include themselves in the Wild Card traffic jam. Yes, it might be early to be talking about a playoff race after only half the season but with the new playoff format the race will be tight as ever.
The Wings need to not only string together a few victories, but they also need to ensure that good play isn’t followed by a string of losses. The first half of the season was streaky for the Winged Wheel. The streaks were often the result injury troubles but nevertheless, the 19 wins the Wings have earned so far this season are countered with 14 losses and a league leading 10 games lost in overtime or a shootout.
Regardless of whether they are playing with their lineup full of superstars, or a roster dominated by Grand Rapids Griffins, the Wings need to adapt to situations they are presented with in order to pull away from the other teams looking to leapfrog them in the standings during the second half of the season.
The primary inconsistency in the Wings’ game lies on home ice. The Wings up until now hold the third best record in the league on the road yet at The Joe, the Wings only managed to win six of 23 games in regulation.
Saturday night, Henrik Zetterberg scored twice and Jimmy Howard turned away 44 shots to beat the Stars 5-1 in Dallas. The win came without the help of Pavel Datsyuk who missed the game due to a lower body injury.
The Stars opened the game with 12 unanswered shots. Zetterberg finally took the first shot towards Dan Ellis, and beat the Stars goalie for his first of two scored from the high slot on the night. Joakim Andersson would score his seventh, and Drew Miller would score his fifth only fourteen seconds apart at the end of the first to secure Dan Ellis a spot at the end of the bench for the remained of the game.
Just over midway through the second period, Tomas Tatar broke through three Stars players to score a beautiful goal on Kari Lehtonen. The shifty Tatar dodged a check from the Dallas defenseman, who instead took out his D partner, and by the time Tyler Seguin turned the jets on his backcheck the puck was already in the net.
The captain added to the total by putting a one-timer from Dan Cleary off the far post and in 12:39 into the third.
In addition to scoring, both Joakim Andersson and Drew Miller led all forwards in PK time and helped the team kill off seven penalties. The perfect night on the PK contributed to the Wings’ 4th best road PK percentage of 87.8%.
Alexey Marchenko made a strong NHL debut on the blueline Saturday night. The 6’2…, 212lb, right-handed defenseman played 13:21 and finished the game plus – 2. The 22 year old Russian started in the absence of Danny DeKeyser, who is listed as day-to-day with a groin injury sustained during the Winter Classic.
The Wings don’t play again until Thursday when they take on the San Jose Sharks. The game will be the first of three against California teams. The teams from the Golden State make up the top three in the Pacific conference.