OT - Red Wings vs Coyotes Game 1 Open Thread

Submitted by Waters Demos on

Wings open the playoffs vs the Coyotes.  FS Detroit at 6:30.

Mike Madano is a healthy scratch. 

Waters Demos

April 13th, 2011 at 6:41 PM ^

http://detnews.com/article/20110413/SPORTS0103/104130412/1128/Mike-Modano-a-healthy-scratch-for-Wings’-playoff-opener

"It's tough; I just need to continue to do what I'm doing and wait for that call and hopefully take advantage of it," Modano said. "It's been a difficult year, a difficult season. I played a lot of catch-up (after returning from the lacerated wrist injury), but the lines were pretty solidified and you had to do something extraordinary to get in there.

"I'll just have to wait for a chance and take advantage of it."


 

 

 

All Aboard

April 13th, 2011 at 6:52 PM ^

has proved himself to be pretty much useless. His injury set him back a ton and he hasn't scored enough to stay in the lineup. As of right now, Eaves and Miller have the same kind of production offensively, but are much more better defensively and on the PK. It's definitely the right decision.

Rico616

April 13th, 2011 at 7:29 PM ^

Is the game streaming online anywhere? Channelsurfing.net is down and I wont have Versus until I move in a few weeks.

 

Edit: Nevermind I found a link on another thread. atdhe.fm

Happy Gilmore

April 13th, 2011 at 7:26 PM ^

Terrible start for the wings. They look like a garbage 8 seed right now...not to say I lost faith, because the Red Wings are never out of a game, but let's go!

Happy Gilmore

April 13th, 2011 at 7:36 PM ^

There is something wrong with that ref with the huge nose. That slash he just called on Phoenix was even worse than the 'high sticking' he called on Abdelkader

Monocle Smile

April 13th, 2011 at 7:50 PM ^

For the majority of his career, Homer has been penalized for looking the goalie the wrong way and teams have literally tackled him with no call. I don't understand why every other player is afforded the benefit of the doubt in that situtation.

mstier

April 13th, 2011 at 7:57 PM ^

To be fair, anyone who stands in front of the net gets this treatment, not just Holmstrom.  Detroit relies on having that big body in front of the net, and so you're going to see it more often in Wings games.  But its not any different for players like Holmstrom on any other team. 

mstier

April 13th, 2011 at 8:01 PM ^

Agreed, I just wanted to stick in that plug before we started getting "OMG THE REFS HATE DETROIT, BETTMAN CONSPIRACY" posts.  Then again, people posting stuff like that probably don't care for facts, logic, etc. and will post anyway, so it's probably all moot.

Note:  NOT referring to you at all, just the hypothetical homer

WolverSwede

April 13th, 2011 at 7:52 PM ^

i doubt even a phoenix fan would think this period has been officiated fairly.   clearly   crosschecking : hooking :: petting : placing-in-bag-and-drowning-in-river

pasadenablue

April 13th, 2011 at 8:00 PM ^

I used to be wary of the "tin foil hat" Wings fans, but I'm with them here.

 

Absolutely ticky-tack penalties called on the Wings, and blatant roughing calls on the yotes have been ignored.  The late hit by Doan on Helm, Jovo punching Homer in the head.

 

The league wants the Coyotes to advance so that they can justify having an ownerless team in the middle of a fucking desert instead of moving it to a hockey city like Winnipeg or Hamilton.

mstier

April 13th, 2011 at 8:04 PM ^

*sigh*

Just because the calls aren't going the Wings way does NOT mean it is a conspiracy.  Sometimes refs make bad calls.  Sometimes those calls, in short periods of time (i.e. one period of one hockey game) are mostly against one team.  It happens, unfortunately, but does not mean that someone is playing puppet master. 

mstier

April 13th, 2011 at 8:16 PM ^

But how many times have the Wings been on the other end of things?  I think you're focused on when the Wings are wronged by poor officiating (understandably), and don't really consider all the times that the Wings should be headed to the sin-bin. 

The refs make bad calls, trust me, but they cut both ways.  Sometimes, in one game, bad calls may affect one team more than another.  It sucks, but it happens.

Monocle Smile

April 13th, 2011 at 8:24 PM ^

But how many times have the Wings been on the other end of things?

I've been a Wings fan all 22 years of my life, and I have a difficult time remembering a significant game where the Wings had more than 2 more power plays than their opponent.

The refs make bad calls, trust me, but they cut both ways.

That's not true in all cases. There's judgment involved; it's not a purely mathematical study where sometimes you land outside of two standard deviations like a dice roll.

Four power plays for one team in a single period is too many.

Seth9

April 13th, 2011 at 8:55 PM ^

The Red Wings had 301 PPs on the season and 300 PKs. That's about as even as it gets. There is variation from game to game and the Red Wings certainly do get screwed by the refs every now and then (for instance, tonight), but as fans we tend to only notice if the refs are screwing us rather than our opponents.

Seth9

April 13th, 2011 at 9:22 PM ^

I feel the same way when I watch the Wings, Michigan Hockey, or any other team I root for a lot of the time. This feeling is exacerbated in sports like hockey, where penalties are more subjective, as well as when we have home-team announcers who do not even attempt to be objective (which I love, but doesn't help with the whole neutral evaluation thing). And then there's the whole issue of the NHL being run by a bunch of people who are perceived as being stupid and corrupt (and this perception, I feel, is accurate to an extent). However, this doesn't mean that the NHL officials are biased or ref in a biased fashion. More likely, they simply miss calls or make bad ones that favor one team or the other by accident (statistical noise) and we only really notice and remember when it is hurting us. Furthermore, when we can build a narrative as to why the refs are predisposed to favor our opponent, we take every bad goal against us as evidence of the narrative and disregard any bad calls going the other way.

mstier

April 13th, 2011 at 8:38 PM ^

I have all three games up on my TV/computers.  I'm in my mid-20s, so you certainly have tenure, but I've played enough hockey and watched enough hockey to have some credibility.  Look up my other posts on mgoblog related to hockey. 

For what its worth, there are very few games where there is a difference of more than 2 PP opportunities per team.  I'm just saying that I don't think its a conspiracy.  Do you honestly think the refs get together and say "hey let's make phoenix win and screw detroit"?

My logic:  Detroit wins lots of games, and has a very large fan base.  Phoenix has about 3 fans.  If you got to pull the strings, and your concerns are financial, wouldn't you want Detroit to win to take advantage of huge television ratings and revenue from 2011 Stanley Cup Champions merchandise?  What exactly do you gain by having Phoenix win?  It would be worse than the last World Series as far as national interest (adjusted for popularity of the sports, of course). 

Bad calls happen.  I just don't think it's a conspiracy. 

 

EDIT:  Read your post wrong, I guess we're about the same age.  It doesn't really matter, I just wanted to edit for consistency.

Monocle Smile

April 13th, 2011 at 8:43 PM ^

This doesn't mean the NHL doesn't want Phoenix to advance. Professional sports organizations, especially the NHL, want to appear as if they know what they're doing, even when they make boneheaded decisions for the sake of national attention.

The NHL has established a ridiculous number of teams in the south relative to the number of people who care about hockey. This earns them more national TV coverage, but the NHL doesn't want to appear as if money is their only motivation...when teams like Phoenix do well, their decisions appear legitimately good for the sport of hockey and Gary Bettman gets to swing his dick around.

It's really no different than the NHL's desire for Sidney Crosby to win a Stanley Cup...after all, he is the posterboy for professional hockey. This doesn't mean that series was a conspiracy, but it doesn't mean the organization is neutral.

mstier

April 13th, 2011 at 8:56 PM ^

Hockey can be viable in the south.  Carolina, Nashville, Dallas, and Tampa have all been relatively successful and have passionate fan bases.  They also do fairly well when you compare market size to average attendance (in percentage).  Conversely, teams like Florida, Phoenix, and Atlanta have struggled.  Hockey can be viable in the south, though it isn't always.

But there was a reason teams left Winnipeg and Hartford.  These were extremely small markets with no corporate support.  These teams were bleeding money, and though things may be different today, it's certainly no gaurantee.

Do you really think the refs care about what Bettman wants?  I just don't buy that the refs want to see Phoenix win and Detroit lose.  If Phoenix wins, it wasn't because Bettman made a phone call or sent emails to the refs urging them to consider the importance of having southern hockey markets.  Just because events transpired that are beneficial to the marketting of the NHL doesn't mean the NHL is scripting it, even at a low level.  Instead, I think they're just capitalizing on it like any smart organization would.