Win streak over, Red Wings dominate Blackhawks

December 30, 11:42 PMChicago Blackhawks ExaminerDieter Kurtenbach

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The Blackhawks will head into the Winter Classic without their winning streak after losing to the Red Wings 4-0 in Detroit Tuesday night. The Red Wings outshot the Blackhawks 39-35, but the narrow margin does not tell the story of the game, where Ty Conklin notched his third shutout of the season and the Red Wings imposed their will on a Blackhawks team that was looking to extend their franchise record winning streak to 10, only to be denied.

The first period was an entirely different game than the end result would let one know. The Blackhawks started the frame with a 12-1 shot advantage over the Wings, aided by two early penalties to Tomas Holmstrom and Henrik Zetterberg. The Blackhawks were held goalless by a Detroit combination of pads and posts, the latter coming when James Wisniewski was denied by the left upright from the deep slot.

The Blackhawks returned the favor to the Wings, giving them two penalties subsequently; and Detroit, second in the NHL on the power play, gave the young Blackhawks a lesson on finishing when Pavel Datsyuk put in a ringing shot on the second of Detroit’s two, first period, man advantages. Datsyuk’s shot caught Khabibulin off guard, unable to see the puck due to the screen put on by Red Wings’ power forward Tomas Holstrom. The goal was Datsyuk’s 15th of the season.

The second period was dominated by the Red Wings. In the middle frame Detroit drew three penalties and put 20 shots on Nik Khabibulin. The Blackhawks were unable to sustain any pressure in the Red Wings’ zone and Detroit spent the vast majority of the period slicing the Blackhawks defensive unit apart. But despite this, the Wings were only able to parlay the situation into one goal, scored on the power play by Johan Franzen. Franzen’s shot went high on the glove hand side of Khabibulin and bounced off the goaltender’s shoulder, which he believed was firmly nestled against the crossbar, and deflected in. Khabibulin was incredulous to the goal, and whether it was luck or skill, the Red Wings held a formidable, but not unassailable two goal advantage.

The Franzen goal was setup by a Kris Versteeg interference penalty, taken immediately after Versteeg shot the puck directly onto Ty Conklin, missing a wide open net to Conklin’s right.

If the Red Wings felt their 2-0 lead was unsafe against the speed of the Blackhawks, Johan Franzen certainly wasted no time to sure up his teammates’ minds. Thirty seven seconds into the third period Franzen eluded a Matt Walker check behind the net and slammed home a wraparound to put the Red Wings up 3-0. Later in the period, the Red Wings countered off the end of a Blackhawks powerplay on a breakaway lead by Valtteri  Filppula, who sped into the Blackhawks zone, two on one, and gave a lead pass to Tomas Kopecky, who beat Khabibulin one on one for his second goal of the season, putting the Blackhawks away in the process.

The Red Wings’ dominance in the faceoff circle and on special teams spelled doom for the Blackhawks, who will face the Red Wings again on Thursday, in a home game of sorts, the Winter Classic which will be held at Wrigley Field. The Red Wings won nearly 70% of the game’s faceoffs, and not a single Blackhawk player had a .500 faceoff percentage.

The Red Wings also killed all six of the Blackhawks’ powerplays, and converted twice on their own power play opportunities. Those two power play goals were more, in one game, than the Blackhawks had given up in their previous nine games. All of those games were victories for the Blackhawks.

Feathers in the Headdress

The Blackhawks are due to have bad games. But save for a few decent performances in a few situations, this one was staight up ugly. The Blackhawks three stars of the game:

HavBolLadd had a pretty decent game this evening, holding the absurd Detroit scoring line in check. In a game where decent Blackhawks performances were the high standard, I needed to combine an entire line’s performance to actually justify giving the third star to anyone, so, the three headed monster of HavBolLadd is the third star of the game for the Blackhawks.

Brent Seabrook was the second star of the game. When Detroit was pushing around Blackhawks left and right, Brent Seabrook was there to match their level of physical play. The Blackhawks were unable to rally around him, but his six hits on the evening deserve laudation and with no one else stepping up that praise comes in the form of the second star.

The first star of the game was Nikolai Khabibulin, who kept the Blackhawks in the game was, frankly, given no help at all. Two of the Red Wings goals were shrug-able, as Khabibulin couldn’t have done really anything to stop the Franzen roof shot or the Kopecky one on one. Khabibulin saved 35 shots on the night, but was straddled with his second regulation loss of the season. If it softens the blow any for the Bulin wall, he was the Blackhawks first star of the game, and, in my opinion, the only play who really showed up for the Hawks in Detroit.

The Kurtenblog

In a statement game, the Blackhawks made the wrong kind. The kind that says that they are not up to the challenge when they face elite NHL teams. After the first two Hawks penalties were killed, the Hawks were rattled, and never recovered. The entire game was unacceptable from my point of view, and I am sure that Joel Quenneville will have a similar analysis. The only good thing that can be taken from this game is that they will have a chance to remedy the situation on Thursday.

The Blackhawks will no longer have a shot to take the division lead at Wrigley Field, but after the lackluster, nay, insipid, performance they turned in Tuesday, they really don’t deserve to consider themselves in the same class as the Red Wings.

And while the Red Wings did have a dominant performance, I would like to address a few things about them and their play. Mainly, that they are a disgrace to Hockey.

There is a reason that the Red Wings are last in the NHL in fighting majors. It is not because they are a clean team, because I would argue it is the opposite situation. No, they have the fewest fighting majors because they are, in a word, cowards. It’s a disgrace to hockey, as their play is a direct violation of The Code.

There were several questionable hits amongst the thirty three Detroit peppered the Blackhawks with on Tuesday. I personally felt that the Cleary hit on Kane that removed the Blackhawks’ winger for the rest of the first period was a direct case of headhunting. Cleary pretty much said so in his interview after the first period on the Red Wings’ telecast. But when Ben Eager or Troy Brouwer or Craig Adams went after Cleary in the game, looking for retribution in the form of a fight, Cleary was an innocent angel.

If that isn’t a violation of The Code, I couldn’t tell you what is.

There were several occurrences during the game. At several segments, the Red Wings players who were getting away with borderline dirty hits were spending more time ducking away from the wrath of Eager than they were playing the puck. But the gloves were never dropped.

And this is not to say that it did not work to the advantage of the Red Wings, because the Blackhawks played the situation to Detroit’s benefit perfectly. There were dumb penalties taken left and right, and Detroit made the Blackhawks play. But, let’s not make any buts about it. The play of the Red Wings could be called only one thing, weaselly. If I was in the Detroit area, I would have strapped up and taken down a few of them myself.

And this is not to say that I have bloodlust. I frankly think that fighting is ruining the sport of hockey in many areas. Teams like the St. Louis Blues goon it up to draw people into their vacant areas, utilizing the old fashioned minor league technique of “entertaining.” The Cam Janseen breed of hockey player might as well be a WWE wrestler, fighting just for the sake of doing so, unprovoked by anything, or worse, provoked by fair, solid, physical play; most of the time, on several occasions a night.

There is no place for that in the beautiful game of hockey. But at the same time, there needs to be fighting so that the players have the ability to police themselves, so players like Sean Avery would have to answer for the dirty and unsportsmanlike tactics they would pull on the ice. The great irony of it all is that those most in need of a stern beatdown are in fact able to avoid a fight in this modern NHL.

So we are left with a game where there is either no accountability or a charade of sport. WIll we ever find a happy medium? I sure hope so.

But don’t expect the Blackhawks to answer with fists on Thursday, I am sure head weasel Gary Bettman will ask the players to be on their best behavior when they play at Wrigley in front of a national TV audience. The only way the Blackhawks can get back at the Wings, for now, is to play them in every department, including the department of goals.

But, in the short term, the Blackhawks remain a great team, and luckily for them, this one game will not dictate their entire season. They still have a chance to be an elite team, a team that can beat up on weaker opponents and take out the top teams in the league every once in a while as well. This season, the Blackhawks have played with, but never better than the NHL’s elite: Boston, San Jose, Detroit. They will have a few more opportunities this season to prove the trend contrary, the biggest being Thursday, but if they don’t bring their best game to the rink then, or January 31st, March 7th and 25th or for the final two games of the year, a home and home against Detroit. If those games have similar results to the contests prior, the story of the Blackhawks season might not be of heights soared, but rather heights unconquered. So, with the Blackhawks down 3-0 in the season series to Detroit, the Blackhawks face their first true make or break game of the season, on the grandest stage of them all.