By the Numbers: Blues 1, Red Wings 0

Postgame Thoughts

I purposely held off on my recap until this morning to see if anything new had emerged on Danny Cleary. Here’s the best I could find, a quote from Kenneth:

“He’s probably out awhile, but I don’t know how long awhile is.”

This whole injury parade is quickly becoming laughable in Motown. I can’t remember a season where so many players went down with injuries that lasted more than a couple of weeks. It’s insane. It’s gotten to the point where a win is just barely more important than coming out of a game unscathed. And it’s not like there is a fix for this. You can’t bench the injury bug or switch it to another line like you can if a player isn’t performing. It’s completely out of anyone’s control, placing a premium on the folks that run the ship from on high. We have one of the best in Ken Holland, but he is really earning his paycheck right now, that’s for sure.

Can any good come from this? Maybe.

Now, before you fire up the search engines to buy a plane ticket out to Seattle to punch me in the face, let me finish. If Cleary is out for any extended period of time, it forces Ville Leino back into the lineup and the Wings will have a set of 12 forwards with no healthy scratches up front for most of the month. For Leino, it’s do-or-die time. Management has been waiting to see if he can perform, and now that necessity has called, Leino has to answer. If he doesn’t, his tenure in Detroit becomes that much rockier and that much more in question. Sure, it would appear that his spot in the lineup is guaranteed, but he knows he has to perform and he knows he has to do it now. Maybe it’s just delusional or wishful thinking on my part, but not having to worry about his spot getting yanked night in and not out may be something that helps the youngster out. On the flip side, Leino may just come out and continue to wander around on the ice, looking for pretty things in the rafters and letting the other team have the puck in the corner. That wouldn’t surprise me. Only time will tell, but I’m hoping for the best here. If it doesn’t work out? Well, Fils should be back by the end of the month, which can only serve to help us at this juncture.

In terms of the game: I’m convinced that the Wings just don’t do well when they have more than a day off. They come out flat and uninspired and generally not ready to go. Sure, the whole jersey snafu after warmups didn’t help, but that one is on the Red Wings staff, as the opposite color scheme had been decided upon well in advance. Personally, I think they should have just gone dark v. dark (similar to what USC and UCLA are doing in football) but it just wasn’t meant to be.

Speaking of wasn’t meant to be, goals against Ty Conklin seem to come at a premium in JLA. Not that the Wings did much to test him, but Conks must be pretty damn comfortable in the Joe if he can come in and pitch a shutout while not wearing the red and white. For the guy that was wearing the Wheel, a pretty darn good effort again. Only giving up one goal should be enough to give any reasonable team a chance, but as we’ve all learned this season, reason and logic don’t apply to this version of the Wings, so of course they lost and wasted another solid performance from Jimmah.

Oh yeah, and how could I forget, the “intent” call. Eh, I think VanMassenhoven got it right. Puck was under Conks’ pad for almost two seconds and he was coming around to blow it dead anyways.

The Wings get a day to rest up before Anaheim comes calling, and if conventional wisdom holds true, we should lose that one in a shootout and then beat Nashville on Saturday. But, like I said, since when has logic applied to this team at all this season?

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Production Charts

*The season totals are updated here and here.

Line Production

Special Teams Production

No special teams scoring

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CSSI

*Season CSSI numbers are updated here.

Goal 1 (STL 1 DET 0): Brad Boyes (8) from Carlo Colaiacovo (8) and Andy McDonald (9) at 1:56, First Period

• Wings on ice: Helm, Draper, Eaves, Lidstrom, Rafalski

• DP(-): It’s almost not even worth doing this but whatever. Eaves (-1) for losing Boyes when he anticipates a pass into the middle to Winchester. Pass never comes and Boyes is wide open. It’s worth noting that this play starts when Lidstrom gets hit in the back and knocked down by, you guessed it, Winchester, which frees up McDonald to get the puck out from behind the net. Oh, Jimmah went down to early as well.

Miscellaneous Points

• HP(+): I didn’t see the game, but word is that Abdelkader played well, save for getting schooled on the faceoff dot. I’ll give him (+0.5) for his troubles.

Chart:

Tags: Dan Cleary, St. Louis Blues, The Jimmah Howard Experiment, Ty Conklin, Ville Leino