CSSI: 10/13/09 @ Buffalo

If I have learned anything during the first five games of the CSSI, it’s that I’m beginning to tire of watching certain players make the same mistakes over an over again. Some of them can be chalked up to inexperience at the NHL level and with the Red Wings system, while others just don’t seem to want to bring it at 100% on a nightly basis. It’s the mark of a team that is used to having success just handed to them and is not mentally prepared to compete over an 82 game stretch.

The proof is in the pudding, and this pudding tastes like s**t.

Season CSSI numbers are updated here.

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CSSI: 10/13/09 @ Buffalo

**Links contain videos of each goal

Goal 1 (PPG) (BUF 1 DET 0): Drew Stafford (1) from Paul Gaustad (1) and Jason Pominville (1) at 12:36, First Period

• Wings on ice: Filppula, Cleary, Lidstrom, Ericsson

After a solid faceoff scrum, the Sabres are able to come away with the puck and begin to work it up top and around the point. The Wings do a nice job setting up the box as the puck comes to the near boards, where Tyler Myers moves it to the top of the near circle. Myers quickly swings the puck back around to Chris Butler, at which point Dan Cleary comes out to challenge the puck, albeit a bit too far (-0.5). As Cleary challenges, Butler slides a pass to the far point, where Pominville rockets a one-timer at Osgood. Since Cleary has already over-committed on Butler, Jonathan Ericsson has decided to focus his attention on Pominville, who is a good 20 feet away from him. In the meantime, Stafford slips behind a flat-footed and confused Ericsson (-1) and is able to smack home a rebound that apparently touched Gaustad at some point.

Goal 2 (PPG) (DET 1 BUF 1): Valtteri Filppula (1) from Niklas Kronwall (3) and Jason Williams (3) at 15:30, First Period

• Wings on ice: Filppula, Cleary, Bertuzzi, Williams, Kronwall

This line continues to look sharp on their power play opportunities, and this goal is another example of that. As the Wings get set up on the power play, they start to move the puck from the far boards, up to the blue line and over to the near point. After Williams skates it to the top of the point, he shovels a pass over to Kronwall, who then skates it to the top of the near circle before wristing a low shot towards the net. With Buffalo focusing their attention on the presence of the screening Dan Cleary, Filppula is able to slide through the backdoor to the top of the crease (+0.5), and tip in (+1.0) Kronwall’s shot. A point to Kronwall for smartly putting a shot into a high-traffic area and giving either his teammate or an opponent the chance to re-direct the puck past Ryan Miller (+1).

Goal 3 (BUF 2 DET 1): Patrick Kaleta (1) from Tyler Myers (2) at 6:03, Second Period

• Wings on ice: Helm, Holmstrom, Williams, Ericsson, Meech

This one starts as the Wings get caught in a delayed offsides. Myers scoops up the puck in his defensive zone and carries it out towards center ice. As Jason Williams attempts to get skating backwards, he awkwardly pokes at Myers (-1), who blows by him to the near side, leaving Williams in his wake. Myers then comes upon Derek Meech in a 3-on-3, and makes the exact same move to blow by him (-1) on his way to the front of the goal. Meanwhile, Ericsson (+0.5) is step for step with his man and Helm (+0.5) recovers nicely on his man to take away any potential rebound opportunities on a shot. Myers tries to ram the puck five-hole on Osgood, who is up to the task, but gives up a juicy rebound to the right slot in the process. As the puck sits out in the open, Kaleta charges in untouched and slips the puck five-hole on Osgood. How did Kaleta get so open? Jason Williams is the goat here (-1), as he never got back into the play after Myers blew by him, allowing Kaleta to come in untouched for the tally.

Goal 4 (BUF 3 DET 1): Thomas Vanek (2) from Derek Roy (3) at 8:04, Second Period

• Wings on ice: Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Bertuzzi, Lidstrom, Ericsson

As Detroit applies pressure on the Sabres in the offensive zone, Derek Roy is able to scoop up the puck in the near corner and begin a rush the other way. As He carries past his own net, it’s immediately noticeable that Jonathan Ericsson is pinching up, which is OK at this point as Datsyuk has dropped back in support. However, Datsyuk attempts to recover and pressure Roy with an ill-timed charge (-1), leaving Ericsson badly out of position as he makes a slow attempt at getting back to recover (-0.5). Roy smartly chips the puck over Ericsson’s head to a wide open Vanek, leading to a 2-on-1 with Drew Stafford. Nick Lidstrom is the last line of defense for the Wings. Lidstrom comes out to challenge Vanek, who ends up pulling up to wait for Stafford to get into position for a redirection on the far side of the net, as Henrik Zetterberg is a step slow in catching up to Stafford and essentially pulls up early (-1) leaving Stafford wide open. As Vanek attempts to feed Stafford, Lidstrom gets his stick on the ice to block the crossing pass. Unfortunately, the pass hits Lidstrom in the skate, and redirects right through Ozzie’s five hole.

Goal 5 (BUF 4 DET 1): Clarke MacArthur (2) from Derek Roy (4) and Jason Pominville (2) at 10:58, Second Period

• Wings on ice: Filppula, Cleary, Leino, Lidstrom, Rafalski

MacArthur starts the play with a chip pass along the near boards into the corner, where Pominville beats Rafalski to the corner and the puck. Rafalski ties him up nicely and forces him off the puck (+1), at which point Filppula sags down to help out in the corner. Flip tries to come down and backhand a weak clearing attempt off the near boards, which is immediately intercepted by Derek Roy. As Roy possesses, Ralfalski steps out to challenge him as Dan Cleary stands idly by (-1), which allows Pominville to slip into space in the near circle, leaving Filppula (still admiring his weak clearing attempt) a step behind him (-1). Roy slips a pass to Pominville, who sees an uncovered MacArthur cutting along the red line towards the net. At this point, the last line of defense (again) for the Wings is Lidstrom, and he hesitates in making a play (-1), finally making a weak, initial move towards Pominville, who then slips the puck to the wide open MacArthur. Lidstrom tries to recover and takes a whack at MacArthur’s stick, but to no avail, as he lifts a backhander under the leg of Osgood. Soft goal by Ozzie here.

**Editor’s note: This is not fun. At all.

Goal 6 (BUF 5 DET 1): Thomas Vanek (3) from Derek Roy (5) at 12:46, Second Period

• Wings on ice: Abdelkader, May, Eaves, Kronwall, Stuart

This play is pretty emblematic of the complete lack of effort from the Wings, and pretty much makes me want to puke. With the puck behind the net in the Wings defensive zone, Niklas Kronwall puts a nice hit on Derek Roy and is able to take the puck away from him and start a breakout (+1). As Kronwall carries up the far boards, Eaves and Staurt fill the lanes, although Eaves’ positioning is way too close to Kronwall (-1), which ends up biting them in the butt. Kronwall looks to make a cross-ice pass to a streaking Stuart (at least I hope that was the plan with such a hard pass), but the pass hits a poorly positioned Eaves in his skate, and Vanek scoops up the attempt and backhands a pass to an uncovered Roy. Kronwall gets back to challenge, but takes a poor angle at Roy and can only clumsily poke around him (-1) before eventually dragging him down, but not before Roy flubs a weak backhand toward the far post. Meanwhile, Vanek is charging in to follow up the shot and is able to tap the puck in since Brad Stuart has decided to lazily follow him (-1) towards the net instead of charging hard and taking the body, leaving him to make a weak-ass poke at the puck after it’s in the net (-1).

Goal 7 (BUF 6 DET 1): Paul Gaustad (1) from Patrick Kaleta (1) and Matt Ellis (1) at 4:28, Third Period

• Wings on ice: Filppula, Leino, Williams, Kronwall, Meech

Kaleta carries the zone for the Sabres, and looks to pass back to the middle, where Ellis is streaking in. However, Kronwall makes a well-timed challenge for the pass, and disrupts Ellis enough (+0.5) so that the puck flips into the air and heads toward Kaleta and Derek Meech. Meech tries to bat the puck out of the air and fails (-0.5), with the puck eventually winding up on Kaleta’s stick in the near corner. Meanwhile, Kronwall has given up on staying with Ellis to slip into the slot, where Filppula is lazily following his man Gaustad (-1). Rather than take the men in front of them, Filppula and Kronwall decide to pull a switch-a-roo on Ellis and Gaustad, with Filppula taking a terrible line to get to Ellis (-1) and Kronwall slowly skating backwards (-1) to try and cover Gaustad, who is wide open on front of Jimmah Howard. Kaleta throws the puck to the front of the net,  Kronwall employs the ol’ “trip over the other guy’s skate” defense (-1) and Gaustad shoves it five-hole past Howard.

Goal 8 (BUF 6 DET 2): Tomas Holmstrom (3) from Brian Rafalski (3) and Henrik Zetterberg (4) at 9:25, Third Period

• Wings on ice: Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Holmstrom, Lidstrom, Rafalski

Meaningless goal here, so you get the short and sweet version. Zetterberg throws a shot at the net that misses everything. Rafalski scoops on the far wall, sees a Holmstrom screen (+0.5) in front. Rafalski does the smart thing and throws the puck somewhere near Homer (+1). Homer magically tips the puck past Miller (+1).

Miscellaneous Points

• None. I wanted to ding Filppula for his missed penalty shot, but he actually made a pretty good move on Miller, who wound up just making a better save. Maybe Flip should go take some lessons from this kid:

I’ll let the chart show you how bad it all was:

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Final Thoughts

I think the chart pretty much sums it all up. Three guys got into the green in this one. 11 guys in the red. That’s a bad night.

That said, there are some trends that are starting to materialize in the season-long chart that I am going to dive into next week, which should help add some context to all of the numbers that get thrown at you throughout the week. I can give you a short glimpse as to what it will say. Ready?

• Brad Staurt is incredibly lazy.
• Niklas Kronwall still hasn’t put it all together on a consistent basis.
• Derek Meech or Brett Lebda? Who cares. They are both equally bad.
• Jonathan Ericsson’s growing pains will probably continue most of the season and he is one of our worst players right now.
• Brian Rafalski is our most consistent player right now. (Sorry Lidstrom lovers, it’s true.)
• Ville Leino is the real deal.

Marinate on those for awhile, and we will discuss further next week. Until then, here’s to hoping the Wings get it figured out against the Kings.

Tags: Buffalo Sabres