POSTGAME: THE DROUGHT CONTINUES

The Wings haven’t won a game in Philadelphia since 1997. Twelfth times a charm eh? Ah, probably not. 

Starts for the Wings haven’t been an issue overall this season. There have been a couple bad ones but they rebounded quickly from a weak weekend. They only really struggled in the dot in the first, the rest of the time they were looking good. Pucks in deep and a fast attack seemed to be the game plan. They had a bunch of good rushes through the neutral zone where they could pick up speed entering on a slower Philadelphia defence. 

After a few good looks the D-Boss managed to get the team on the board:

Lucky bounce but I’m sure he’ll take it. They can’t all be as pretty as this one would have:

Only 16 seconds later we saw another young wonder kid put the Wings up 2-0. Andreas Athanasiou out waited Neuvirth just look enough to beat him short side:

When Detroit was using their speed like this, they were far and away the better team. Anytime the play slowed down it didn’t go well for them. Muzak continued to be sharp and make more than his share of saves. Some close calls but the Wings found themselves up 2-0 coming out of the first.

While Philadelphia may be one of the worst first period teams in the league, they stayed consistent here as one of the best second period teams in the game. They put together a solid attack, got a little more physical and sent all traffic to the front of the net. There were some questionable non-calls on both ends including this flying elbow from the recently suspended Brayden Schenn:

But alas, they ‘let the teams play’ as anyone over age 50 would say after a hit like that. 

After a couple good chances, the Flyers managed to put one away and cut the lead in half:

Late in the third Tatar went to the box on a questionable hit and the Flyers got to put their power-play to work to start the third.

While the power-play didn’t convert, it certainly swung the momentum hard and for the first four minutes of the third it was all Flyers. After a bad turnover from Ericsson, we had ourselves a kid’s NHL first:

Detroit stayed composed though. After a great shift by the Athanasiou line we saw Tatar and Z go to work. After a great battle against a clumsy Gudas along the boards, the captain finally potted his first goal of the year:

Detroit’s power-play, although they only got one, had a weird look. Unit 1 had Green and DeKeyser on the point while Unit 2 had both Smith and Ouellet. We only had the one power-play to seat in action so no sure judgement can come from that small sample size but it did fail to convert. 

Then with less than two minutes left there’s a face-off in the d-zone and don’t worry, Glendening and Miller are on the ice. Wait, what? You also only have one right handed face-off guy in the entire lineup and you put him on to try and win that draw on his forehand vs. Claude Giroux? What is happening?! The Flyer’s are scoring, that’s what:

Here we go. 3v3 against one of the best OT teams in the league. There’s been a theme to these postgames lately and it’s how brutal Danny DeKeyser has been in almost every game this season. He made two just horrible passes in the same shift in overtime, the second of which led to this winner from Voracek:

While the Wings did managed a point in that game they still blew the lead twice and their bad players continued to drag the entire team down. They host Winnipeg friday and the Oilers sunday, those should be an easy four points depending on what Wings team decides to show up. That back end is still killing this team and although they may not have the best records, both those teams have an ensemble of high-skill, young forwards who could really wear on them. We’ll see how the weekend goes.