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Embarrassing. Shocking. Unforeseen. These are just a few of the words being used by the Red Wings faithful just one day after the Nashville Predators committed ice hockey’s version of rape and pummeled Detroit 8-0.
“Ridiculous,” “humbling” and “they deserved it” are undoubtedly on the minds of others.
The nightmare started for Detroit when Ville Koistinen scored at 4:48 of the first period and it was all down hill from there. Just 29 seconds later David Legwand would score, and for all intents and purposes the game was already over.
Detroit was just flat in every single aspect for the entire 60 minutes. They lost battles along the boards, constantly gave the puck away and played defense like they never learned the concept in the first place. And then there was the goaltending.
Ty Conklin allowed four goals on nine shots within the first ten minutes (including one that went in off the back of his head), and that my friends is flat out horrible. Osgood was then sent in to clean up the mess Conklin left and didn’t do much better. Granted, the game was kaput by that point, but any time you allow a goal within your first minute of entering the game you know something is off kilter.
Click here for game highlights lowlights.
Even the Predators were surprised at how things went, including hat trick-scorer Jason Arnott, who said Nashville “got a lot of lucky bounces that went in for us.”
Continued head coach Barry Trotz:
“We really had a six-minute span where we got all of our goals and, in defense, I didn’t think that they were able to get a save in those six minutes and some nights you are going to have that.”
This was the second game in as many nights for Detroit, but that excuse only works when the losing team actually puts forth an effort. Detroit absolutely did not.
“Things didn’t go our way at all,” Brian Rafalski said. “We didn’t help ourselves. We had some turnovers. A lot of things happened, nothing good.”
Added head coach Mike Babcock:
“We got humbled to say the least. I think we’ve got Nashville two more times. I’m sure we’ll remember. We’re going to have day off tomorrow and get back on track Monday.”
Notes
- Four of Detroit’s defenseman registered numbers in the negative range: Derek Meech was a -5, Brad Stuart was a -4, Andreas Lilja was a -2 (on top of getting has ass kicked in a fight by Shea Weber) and Niklas Kronwall was a -2.
- Nashville scored 8 goals on just 23 shots. Not a bad shooting percentage. On the other hand Detroit scored squat and managed 30 shots.
- Scoring breakdown is as follows:
First period
Nashville, Koistinen 3 (Weber, O’Reilly), 4:48.
Nashville, Legwand 17 (Smithson, Ward), 5:17.
Nashville, Ward 11, 9:24.
Nashville, Pihlstrom 2 (Tootoo, Klein), 9:51.
Nashville, Arnott 24 (Koistinen, Jones), 10:48.
Second period
Nashville, Arnott 25 (Sullivan, Dumont), 14:13 (pp).
Third period
Nashville, Weber 17 (Sullivan, Dumont), 8:45.
Nashville, Arnott 26 (Dumont, Sullivan), 13:16.
Paul Benvin covers the Detroit Red Wings for The Hockey Writers. Feel free to contact him with tips, video, or general dissension.
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