The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly... Hockey Division

About last night... first The Good:



The Bad? Well... several things. Neil Young sang that "Rust Never Sleeps," and the Wings showed a trace of rust last evening after their ten eight-day layoff. Anaheim had just a little "more" in the first period, being as how they were a little faster, a little more motivated, and a little bit more on top of things. They also scored first. Add in the fact that Nick Lidstrom's normal defense partner and point man for the power play, Brian Rafalski, was out with an upper body injury and things weren't looking all that great for The Winged Wheel. But, as noted above... the Wings hung in there, Lidstrom stepped up... way up... and the Wings pulled out a squeaker.

The Ugly:



There's wide and varying opinion on whether that hit was "clean," or not. From The Detroit News:

Detroit -- Two locker rooms, two versions.
The Red Wings called the hit Mike Brown laid on Jiri Hudler dirty. The Ducks maintained it was clean contact.
Brown was slapped with a five-minute major and a game misconduct with 8:31 left in the first period after he slammed Hudler to the ice. They were not playing the puck, since Hudler, whose head was down and said he was blind-sided by Brown, had already made the pass.

"It was a vicious, dirty hit," said coach Mike Babcock, after the Wings' 3-2 victory Friday night in the first game of the Western Conference semifinals at Joe Louis Arena.

[...]
Ducks coach Randy Carlyle, whose team gave up a then-tying goal on the ensuing power play to Franzen, was defiant after the game and supported Brown while saying the play was clean.
"I'm sure they're going to say it was dirty, but this is a game that's played and physical contact is allowed," Carlyle said. "We timed the hit. Basically from the time he passed the puck until Mike Brown made contact with him, it wasn't a second that went off the clock."

The on-ice officials clearly saw things differently than Coach Carlyle, giving Brown a five minute major and a game misconduct. It remains to be seen whether the league... who reviews these sorts of things as a matter of course... will hand out a suspension to Brown. Given as how I'm a Wings fan, I'm hesitant to rant and rave about the hit, at the risk of being viewed as a "homer." But my gut tells me the hit WAS dirty, and there was no reason for it. Brown clearly saw Hudler had gotten rid of the puck... and the hit WAS to Hudler's head. That sort of stuff... deliberate hits to the head... doesn't belong in hockey, period.

All that said... the series began as advertised... hard-fought, difficult, physical, and HIGHLY entertaining. This is gonna be good...

―:☺:―

A change in the weather... Two days ago we were flirting with 90 degree temps. This morning it's cold (46 degrees when I fired up the coffee), gray and threatening rain. Our forecast calls for a 70 degree high, but I have SERIOUS doubts we'll even get close to that. It looks like it'll be an indoors kinda day.

Speaking of which... excuse me, if you would, Gentle Reader. There's a hockey game on I absolutely, positively HAVE to watch. Just now: "He shoots... he SCOOOORES...!" Crosby. Pens 1, Caps 0. Wowzers.