Garret Craig

The Dallas Stars avoided being swept by the Detroit Red Wings Wednesday night as they beat the Wings 3-1 thanks to some biased “new era” NHL refereeing (Yes, I’m still trying to get over it). But an unbiased read into the statistics says that the Wings will finish up the Stars on Saturday at the Joe.

I’ll start with something that seems to be on everybody’s list already; Marty Turco. His career numbers against the Red Wings are far less than good, 3-13-5. To make things worse, the majority of his problems have been at Joe Louis Arena, where he is 0-9-2 with a goals against average well over 3.

Then comes Playoff history. The Dallas Stars have gone 0-3 in their franchises’ attempts to come back from a 3-0 playoff deficit, however, after game four, they are 3-1 in their attempts to avoid being swept, which they did Wednesday night.

When leading a playoff series 3-1, the Detroit Red Wings have a 14-2 series record and an 8-8 Game 5 record. The Stars, when trailing a series 3-1, are 0-8 in their comeback attempts and 4-4 Game 5 record.

The Stars and Wings may both be .500 in this situation going into the game Saturday, but if you factor in Turco’s struggles, it’s going to be tough for the Stars to even keep this close.

I’ll take the Red Wings, in game 5, 3-2 in OT.

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.

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.