The Red Wings kept up their momentum from Colorado last Thursday into the Joe tonight, as they handled the Dallas Stars with ease winning 4-1 and taking a 1-0 series lead.
Penalties killed the Stars in Game 1, as Detroit went 3 for 7 with the advantage (stats were skewed by two Dallas penalties in the final minute). Dallas was 0 for 4 with the man advantage.
Johan Franzen remains hot, recording the game winning goal at 15:34 of the first period which gave the Red Wings a 2-0 lead.
Chris Osgood refused to slow down, stopping 20 of the 21 shots he faced–plenty of which were quality scoring chances. Meanwhile, Marty Turco stopped 27 of 31 shots as he continues his win-less drought at the Joe Louis Arena.
The Red Wings win streak continues to 7, while Chris Osgood remains unbeaten in his 7 starts. Detroit also has not dropped a contest at home in 6 games. They will try to continue all of these streaks Saturday night as they try to extend their lead to 2-0 at the JLA.
They just don’t seem to care any more. The moves by Jim Leyland Monday were supposed to give the Tigers some sort of new energy, but the Tigers batters will have none of it. The Tigers, who scored three runs last night, and were shut out 5-0 tonight, are now averaging 2.2 runs in the past 5 games, and 4.7 runs per game over the first 34 games.
Let me take you to the bottom of the 8th inning, two outs, “All-Star” Ivan ‘Pudge’ Rodriguez at the plate. Pudge lines it down the right field line into the corner. Now most players, not making the money Rodriguez is, would be running hard out of the box, putting some pressure on the opposing team and maybe trying to spark a rally. But Ivan Rodriguez, since he knows he’s just an amazing player, trots around the base paths like he just hit a grand slam. This is just one of the many things I’ve seen over the last month+ that tell me this team doesn’t want to win a World Series.
Why? They have no reason to. Most of these players have guaranteed money for many years to come. And good money too. Just as one example, Miguel Cabrera is locked up for 8 years, and if he never hits the ball again in his career, he will be set for life with $153.3 million. That comes out to $120,000 every game in the next 8 years. What incentive does Miguel have to win?
Gary Sheffield, who will make around 13 million this year, and around $80,000 per game, is currently hitting .176 with 2 home runs. The Tigers have him locked up through next year. That sounds promising doesn’t it?
Until now, I’ve been preaching “We’re only a few games back, we’ll be OK.” All I can say now is that Tigers fans have reason to be scared.
So much for a “rivalry sparking playoff duel”. The Wings tossed the Avs to the side Thursday night, winning 8-2, and finishing off a four game sweep of Colorado.
Johan Franzen was sensational, scoring a hat trick by the end of the second period. Franzen has now scored 26 goals in his last 26 games going back to the regular season on Sun Mar 2 @ Buffalo when he recorded a goal and an assist while filling in for the injured Thomas Holmstrom. The “Mule” now leads all playoff scoring with 11 goals. Daniel Briere of the Flyers is a long-shot second with 8 goals.
Mikael Samuelsson and Henrik Zetterberg each recorded two goals of their own in the rout.
Detroit will now go to the Western Conference Finals for the second straight year. They will face either Dallas or San Jose. Tired Wings fans would prefer Dallas, who currently leads the Sharks 3-1 in their series which continues Friday night @ San Jose.
We’ve seen it in the last two games especially, the Colorado Avalanche are taking stupid penalties, and the Red Wings aren’t letting them get away with it. But it isn’t just the PIM’s that have handed the Avalanche a 3-0 deficit in Round 2, they may actually be trying too hard. I noticed this especially in last nights 4-3 Wings win, the Av’s are overplaying the body, sending two or even three men to hit a Red Wing player, leaving goal scorers like Johan Franzen, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg wide open in front of the Av’s goal.
Jose Theodore isn’t doing much to help them out either. Last night’s game was the first against the Red Wings when he played the whole 60 minutes, and he still gave up four goals in the loss.
The Wings will go into game four Thursday night confident and aiming for the sweep. The Wings come in with a 4.3 Goals Per Game Average in this series alone.
More than one site (FoxSports.com, kffl.com) has claimed Brandon Inge is very upset with Jim Leyland’s move of Carlos Guillen from first base to third recently (Though I have failed to find a quote from Brandon).
But despite upsetting a 19 million-dollar .200 hitter with no reasons to complain, the move appears to be paying off. The infield has noticeably improved with Cabrera at first base. The pathetic errors have abruptly ended, and the Tigers are now beginning to look like a Major League Baseball Team.
The Tigers are currently @ the Yankees for a three game set, Detroit took the first game behind a quality start from Kenny Rogers.
Justin Verlander went 5 2/3 innings Sunday night on ESPN in the Detroit Tigers 6-2 loss to the Angels, giving up 6 “earned” runs on 7 hits, 4 walks, and 3 k’s. Impressive? Not statistically, but at least two of those “earned” runs can not realistically be faulted to Verlander, the first of which came on an RBI triple on a playable fly ball that was misplayed by Magglio Ordonez in right field.
No, if you watched the first five innings of the game, you would have seen glimpses of the Justin Verlander that we saw in the 06 and 07 seasons, who had his velocity back and was pitching consistent high-90’s with his fastball.
Verlander had good control of most of his pitches, especially his curve-ball (which was ’stellar’). He threw 57 strikes and 45 balls (Most of which were pitched in the 6th inning collapse) while giving up 4 walks in the game.
Then again, it is the stats that count for tonight, so we’ll see if the Tigers can recover and get back on track Tuesday night when Kenny Rogers faces the dangerous New York Yankees.
Saturday was great day for the city of Detroit. The Red Wings squared off with the Avs in Game 2 of the 2nd Round, and dominated from the first whistle to the final horn, winning handily by a score of 5-1. Johan Franzen scored his first career hat trick, and Chris Osgood was spectacular once again, leading the way for the Wings to a 2-0 series lead going into Denver Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, 1.34 miles away, the Tigers and Armando Galarraga took a no-hitter to the 6th inning, only to have it erased by a triple with two outs. Galarraga finished going 6 2/3, with 2 earned runs on just a single hit. After a Los Angeles comeback late, the Tigers got back on top and finished the game 6-4, leaving Tigers fans happy and eager to find the Wings’ score.
It couldn’t all be good though, as all this happened, the Detroit Lions made barely a ripple in the NFL draft with the 17th pick (why did they have to win so much last year?). They selected Gosder Cherilus
. Has anybody heard of him before? All I can say is, at least it wasn’t a wide receiver.
Below is a video I made Wednesday in response to the NHL’s new rule concerning a $10,000 fine for Octapi swinging.
It was recently featured in a Yahoo sports article which is awesome! It already has over 20,000 (Apr. 26) views.
I have been all over advertising this petition in an effort along with avid Wings fan and season ticket holder Ryan Morin to reverse this illogical NHL ruling.