DETROIT, Michigan -- The Detroit Red Wings will be without defenseman Brian Rafalski as they open their second-round series against the Anaheim Ducks tonight. He is listed as day-to-day with an upper body injury.
Jonathan Ericsson moved up to the first defensive pairing with Nicklas Lidstrom, with Chris Chelios coming into the lineup to take Ericsson's spot on the third pair with Brett Lebda. The second pair remains Niklas Kronwall and Brad Stuart.
The Red Wings will also be without Kris Draper, who missed the entire first round and has been ruled out of the first two games against Anaheim with an upper-body injury.
Dan Cleary did not take the morning skate but will play tonight. Andreas Lilja skated but has no timetable for a return.
Yikes! No Rafalski! Head for cover! Couldn't we/shouldn't we call up Meech?
Meech is still with the team, he's a healthy scratch.
I don't mind Chelios getting the call before Meech but Raffy going down reminds me a lot of losing Schneider and Kronwall last time the Wings played the Ducks in the playoffs.
Versus didn't show the anthem. FSN made a point to. Interesting.
Here we go...
Saw that coming, Wings defense got turned around.
Bummer.
Big PK. Very important to kill that off.
Loved the way Hudler pickpocketed Whitney on the blue line during that penalty kill.
Elbow and a late hit. Suspend that f*cker.
I say that about Hudler and that happens. Very late. Blood everywhere.
Five-minute major, game misconduct.
Make. Them. Pay.
Franzen! There's one!
Franzen makes 'em pay.
I think Mike Brown's been taking checking lessons from Chris Pronger.
The rest of the powerplay was rather disappointing. There was about a minute where they couldn't really gain the zone. Would have liked one more.
Oddly, the Wings don't seem to be moving the puck well.
Considering how shaky they were, I think the Wings have to be happy coming out of that period tied.
Huds on the bench.
Corey Perry's a little bitch.
Ericsson said "Enough of those little gloved jabs, you want to go, we'll go."
10 stitches apparently. He's one tough cookie.
Go on Ericsson! Perry trying to go after Osggod. Ericsson said no.
Another good kill.
Whitney has his back to the play, too busy screwing with Homer to line up on the Lidstrom shot. And what a shot.
Lidstrom! f*ck yeah!
Diving bastards.
Of course. Jesus Christ.
Not an ideal way to end the period......
I can't argue with either of those penalties but I will say they were way cheap. Yes, Homer hit Pronger, but Pronger went down suspiciously fast for someone supposedly so tough.
Holy hell, Franzen took off there but couldn't get anything on it.
Perry keeps throwing gloved punches. Ass.
Osgood says no.
He's not worth it Franzen.
Holding my breath too much. I hate the playoffs sometimes.
Looks like it's squeaky bum time again.
The motherf*cking Captain!
Great job of jumping up there. Strong D now, guys. Strong D.
LIIIIIIIIDDDDDDSSSSSSSTTTTRRRRROOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get off our f*ckING GOALIE!
One down, bitches!
f*cking hell, once Osgood had covered up everyone on the ice was in the f*cking crease.
Stick that win in your pipe and smoke it you dirty cheating bastards.
Stop complaining detroit. Everytime we play you guys you whine when you win, you whine when you lose. Your attitude takes away from a great organization. Its gonna be a great series. I saw the hit. Good playoff hockey. The ducks #### shots all the time and they dont complain. Was it worth a suspension. NO. Dion Phinuef (sp?) headhunts everyone in the league, and they dont do anything. They shouldnt start now. Sadly since the Ducks are like the ugly step child to the NHL they'll take Brown to the woodshed because it was against the darling original 6 Wings, oh well luckily it wasn't Getzy or Pears or Prongs lol.... carlye is always whinning. lidstrom crossed checked neids and theres a no call. then the get marchant for some tacky little hooking call. barely made contact. we could go on about this all day. I say shut up and play............ these are some of the comments being left on the ESPN boards regarding the cheap shot of hudler and of course the boo hooing has begun about the ref's god forbid they fess up and admit we are the better team here
I've never been a big fan of those boards. Too many dopes who don't know sh*t about the game of hockey.
Whine, whine, cry.
F*ck 'em. They are just p*ssed becasue they all thought the "big tough ducks" were going to push the Wings around like they did in 2007. We didn;t have Kronwall, Stuart or BIG RIG in 2007.
Big Rig is one of my favorites now that he threw that little punk *ss Perry around like a rag doll. He got about 4 good shots in the face too.
Hmmm, the Wings looked a little sloppy tonight, but I will take the win. Thank God Lidstrom was there, everyone was cheering for Osgood but I really think Lidstrom deserved that one.
Franzen's breakaway (was it the beginning of the third?) was BAMF. I wish he would've scored on that! And Brown's hit was dirty. It reminded me of the Hanson brothers when the one elbows the dude in the pregame skate at center ice. That was gross, too. I don't know if they showed it on TV, but there was a LOT of blood, ewwwwwww.
I think the highlight of the night were these drunk guys singing in the parking garage (to the "Let's Go Red Wings" beat) "Where the hell's my ca-ar?....I can't find my ca-ar!" It was odd. 
+ The music was updated. There was some playing from last year, it was exciting because it's usually same-old same-old.
i'll attribute the sloppiness to the extended downtime between series i was just thinking that this afternoon about the "rust" factor it turned out OK though things should go better sunday if we come out and stick it to em good theres a good chance we put it away in 5 Osgood had another good night and Mule just continues to wow me now they came out and played their game of goon hockey tonight and still got beat and the last minute goal really had to be a kick in the jewels sunday should get very interesting especially if brown does not get suspended WHICH HE BETTER!!!!!
I think it's funny to see how the two national media groups are looking at the Brown hit on Hudler.
The US coverage on Versus had Keith Jones screaming for a suspension. The Canadian coverage on CBC had Ron MacLean calling it good clean playoff hockey. Is there any sport as schizophrenic as ours?
I don't like the hit. That said, after the benefit of many replays, I think the proper punishment would have been an interference call and then a one game suspension. It looked much worse than it was at the time but that doesn't stop it from having been a hit to the head and late. Because it looked worse, the officials overreacted. Because the officials overreacted, there probably won't be a suspension.
Actually, my punishment doesn't take into account that the league is supposedly cracking down on hits to the head. Figured I should throw that out there.
As far as rust goes... Definitely saw it in the first and second. I think the Wings looked a little better in the third. Hard to tell if that one shift where the Getzlaf line had a ton of pressure was from Detroit's rust or from that line being so good. I'm not worried about rust for Sunday.
I am much encouraged because although the Wings did not play their BEST game, they won, which means there's more in the tank where that came from.
What I found interesting about the hit on Hudler was that Hudler had been called for an elbow in the first period--if his "infraction" was worth a call, then the hit on him was certainly worth a call...the fact that CBC was saying that the second hit was a non-call seemed inconsistent, to say the least.
And where were the whistles when Osgood obviously had the puck covered?
I am much encouraged because although the Wings did not play their BEST game, they won, which means there's more in the tank where that came from.
What I found interesting about the hit on Hudler was that Hudler had been called for an elbow in the first period--if his "infraction" was worth a call, then the hit on him was certainly worth a call...the fact that CBC was saying that the second hit was a non-call seemed inconsistent, to say the least.
And where were the whistles when Osgood obviously had the puck covered?
yeah and what i found interesting about that was carlyle was crying in the press conference about Hiller getting run over by Mule which was obviously in the flow of the play we see how they think and that is we can rough you up consistenly with cheap shot's but don't touch us and we better get all the call's
There are coaches who think part of their job is political, lobbying the refs for calls through the media. And while that's not supposed to work, it's hard to say it doesn't. I like that Babcock typically takes the high road but there are times I'd love to see him come right back with "Carlyle wants more goalie interference called? Fine, call it. But if you're gonna be strict about that, we want more roughing after the whistle called."
Brian Rafalski
Credit: Clark Rasmussen
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