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Abel to Yzerman

Mid-afternoon Red Wings tidbits

by George Malik on 01/31/11 at 03:32 PM ET
Comments (3)

Of brief Red Wings-related note this afternoon:

• As TMR is headed on the road to ferry TMR’s mom on the road this afternoon (ahead of Snowmageddon), WJBK’s Jennifer Hammond provides an interim Wings practice update via a pair of tweets:

Always good to see datsyuk, Stuart, cleary and Modano back on the practice ice for the Wings.
...
Nick Lidstrom not on the practice ice for the Wings as he travels back from the all star game and gets a little breather.

We’ll find out whether Stuart’s wearing a full cage later this afternoon.  He and Modano remain a month away, give or take a week or three, from returning to the lineup.

• Fanhouse’s A.J. Perez noted that Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom approves of the NHL’s All-Star makeover:

[T]he way NHL officials talked up Friday’s draft popularity, this approach could be around at least through next year’s game in Ottawa.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters over the weekend that the NHL All-Star Fantasy Draft created “buzz” and “sense of energy around” the weekend.

Though Toronto Maples Leafs forward Phil Kessel—the last player picked—may have other thoughts, players also had favorable reviews.

“I think it made for an exciting weekend,” Lidstrom said. “Everybody was anticipating the draft and (wondering) who was going to get picked first and who was going to get picked last. Everything around the draft created a lot of hype (for the game). The league was happy with it and (the NHL Players’ Association) was too.”

Nevertheless, the All-Star Game itself will remain both beautiful and mind-numbingly boring at times:

“Once you get out there, there’s not much difference,” said the Detroit Red Wings defenseman, a 12-time All-Star. “It was fun for me to get a chance to see some Eastern Conference players you don’t get to see a whole lot.”

• The Free Press’s Jamie Samuelssen weighed in on the changes made to a game where, quite admittedly, players’ main goals involve not sustaining injuries, and he proposes a now-familiar change which many journalists have hoped for since the Winter Classic became a yearly event:

NHL: This one is easy. Play it outdoors. No combination of East vs. West or North America vs. the World or Lidstrom vs. Staal has moved the meter. But every Jan. 1, hockey defies the odds by putting up a decent number against the bowl games regardless of who’s playing. So take the All-Stars and put them at Wrigley or Heinz Field or Comerica Park and drop the puck. The hockey wouldn’t be intense. But the interest in the game would be much more intense than it is.

Given that the NHL has more than a few sunbelt owners to pat on the back for resolving their ownership situations, I can’t see outdoor games realistically take place over the next few years.  The Bolts, Coyotes and Predators will probably receive, “We’re glad you’re still here” All-Star Games sooner than later.

• Shifting gears to the AHL, the Grand Rapids Griffins’ “Half Eagle, Half Lion, All Griffin” blog provides brotherly context to Ilari Filppula’s participation in tonight’s All-Star Game (7 PM, FSD):

Griffins forward Ilari Filppula was unable to help the Western Conference earn a victory at the 2011 AHL All-Star Skills Competition on Sunday afternoon in Hershey, while participating in the puck control relay, pass and score, and the breakaway relay. But in tonight’s all-star game, he’s guaranteed to make history, win or lose.

Once Filppula steps on the ice, he and younger brother/current Detroit Red Wing Valtteri will become one of just four sets of brothers in AHL history to compete in the league’s all-star game. Ilari, the Griffins’ lone representative with defenseman Brendan Smith on the mend, makes his appearance five years after Valtteri, who played in the 2006 event in Winnipeg.

Oddly enough, two of the other three sets of AHL all-star siblings have Griffins ties: Nick (2006-07 Griffins) and Gregg Naumenko, and Mark (2007-08 Griffins) and Matt Cullen. Peter and Chris Ferraro round out the quartet.

One other set of brothers has represented the Griffins in all-star games, albeit in different leagues. Kip Miller served as captain of the PlanetUSA AHL All-Stars at the game’s 2007 edition in Toronto, while older brother Kevin started in the IHL’s mid-season classic in 2000, in a unique format that saw the defending Turner Cup champion Houston Aeros defeat a team of IHL All-Stars by a 5-3 count.

• In the fantasy hockey department, TSN’s Scott Cullen notes that Pavel Datsyuk, Johan Franzen and Henrik Zetterberg’s point-per-game totals increase significantly after the All-Star Break, which is good news for poolies and good news for the Mule as he’s likely to finally return to 100% health in mid-to-late February.  He’s driven me and you nuts with his perimeter play thus far, but we tend to forget that his left knee’s ACL was constructed via taking a chunk out of his right ACL, so he’s spent the last year recovering from two major knee surgeries.  The general rule, again, for players who are recovering from reconstructive knee surgery is as follows—the player may be able to safely return to action only four months after surgery, but he won’t fully recover until a full year after he resumes playing;

• In light of the Space Canoe’s SI article about Floppa, SI posted a gallery of the NHL’s “Old Age Comebacks,” and you may have heard of Gordie Howe, Chris Chelios, Dominik Hasek (who’s playing absolutely dominant hockey for Spartak Moscow in the KHL this season) and Ted Lindsay (who, alongside Chelios, still works out in the Wings’ weight room.  Chelios, according to the press, still rides the bike in the sauna every day at 48);

• I’ll take this compliment about the Wings from ESPN’s Scott Burnside and run with it:

Hate to fall back on that old adage about “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” but it does apply to the Detroit Red Wings.

Detroit has managed to keep a solid cushion over Nashville in the race for the Central Division title and is also within striking distance of Vancouver for the top seed in the West (they are five points out with a game in hand). All this despite missing key personnel like Pavel Datsyuk, Daniel Cleary and Brad Stuart, among others. Well, sound the bugle, the cavalry is coming over the hill in the form of Cleary and Datsyuk, both of whom are expected back in the lineup this week.

The Wings are 6-4-1 in 11 January games and coach Mike Babcock has seen some impressive play from players who might not otherwise get much time on the power play, penalty kill or top-six forward minutes. Four of the team’s victories in January came in overtime or the shootout. The team must still deal with its goaltending depth as Chris Osgood is out long-term with a groin injury (they failed in their efforts to land Evgeni Nabokov, who was picked up by the Islanders via waivers); but watch for the Wings to take their game up a notch in the coming days. Interesting to note the Wings play the Predators twice in their first five post-All-Star break games.

In the “stuff I didn’t post” category, the Predators’ (two games vs. the Wings in February) and Blue Jackets’ (one game) press corps are playing up their tilts with Detroit as be-all-end-all affairs;

• And Chicks Who Give a Puck’s Sarah McNeil profiled the Herm to Hockeytown charity, reviewing the first gathering’s events.  We’ve got about a month to go till H2H2 hits on March 11th, and you can of course find all the details regarding donations, event details and making wacky pledges via The Production line via H2H2’s website. 

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Comments

Please, dear Lord, let there be no outdoor all-star games. The outdoor game is one of the few NHL showcases that actually works. The ice isn’t always the greatest, but it’s a meaningful game and the players treat it like one.

The worst thing the NHL could do would be to waste its single greatest marketing gimmick—and maybe the one game that some viewers watch all season—on a lifeless, poor-excuse-for-actual-hockey all-star game.

Posted by Sven22 from Grand Rapids on 01/31/11 at 07:41 PM ET

Thanks George, some awesome scouting on all this stuff.

Posted by stayouttamalibu from California on 01/31/11 at 07:52 PM ET

The best thing the NHL could do is move the skill competition to the same weekend as the Classic and scrap the All-Star game all together.  While they’re at it they could move it to a different weekend and stop trying to compete with football.

Speaking of the Jackets and the Predators… I live in Blue Jackets territory.  Man its annoying how much these guys think they are the Wings rivals.  I know the fans here don’t know what its like to make the playoffs, but I wish they’d keep the tv on during the playoffs and get some perspective!

Posted by bezukov from Nasburgum delenda est. on 01/31/11 at 08:09 PM ET

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Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977.  No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y.  Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation.  There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature.  Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that. Your suggestions and critiques are welcome: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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