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Shots Are On The House
by IwoCPO on 12/13/06 at 08:01 AM ET
Comments (2)
Yep, plenty of shots. Shots for everyone. Wear your hat, ring the bell and it’s shots for the whole bar (navy reference...sorry). 45 of them. That’s a lot of shots and I don’t care what Southeast Asian bar you’re in.
But shots mean squat when the other goalie’s that hot (how ‘bout that?....thanks). Forget the extra motivation, the other “emotional” factors and boil it down to Ray Emery standing on his head; ending the Wings’ three-game winning streak and dropping Detroit 3 points behind little Bubba.
Helene St. James/Detroit Free Press
“For most all of the game we did the things we wanted to do,” Wings coach Mike Babcock said. “Their kid made a lot of saves and made a couple of huge ones, and you have to give him credit.”
You had to know it was one of those games. 18-3 difference in shots after the first and it’s scoreless? Oh yeah. These are the types of nights when you just know evil is on the horizon. These are the types of nights when you feel the rumblings in your tummy start when the (relatively) unheralded goalie starts showing signs of ownership midway through the first.
And it was the type of night where you just knew the only way the Wings win is if our goalie is just as hot, facing a paltry number of shots. And well...that just wasn’t in the cards. Emery was too good. Hasek wasn’t good enough.
Don Brennan/Ottawa Sun
In what was expected to be a “you should have re-signed me” statement game for Dominik Hasek, The Dominator was merely mortal in his first meeting with the team that cut ties with him last spring.
Emery, meanwhile, flipped and flopped and flied to stop pucks all night, providing Ottawa with yet another sensational effort, stopping 43-of-45 shots. His best moment came in the second period, on a fabulous lunging glove save off Pavel Datsyuk at the goal line that should be on all the highlight clips.
An industrious blogger would have that clip all cue’d up for you and ready to go.
Let me know when you find that blogger so I can visit his site.
Me? I’ll be searching for clips of Spezza happily skipping through the entire Detroit lineup for Ottawa’s third goal. Or perhaps I’ll find the video of our Enigma giving young Jason a Christmas gift two weeks early. Oh, the jubilation.
An ugly night in most respects, particularly the most siginficant one in the loss column. But....but, 45 shots, “territorial domination” as Mike Babcock put it, lessens the pain a bit.
For Ottawa, a little statement. They won’t say it, naturally. Just another win, folks. Glad to help the team. Great to get that two points, thanks for asking.
But, you have to know they kinda wanted to, you know, beat the guy who they felt, I don’t know..ummm, ruined their playoff? Personally, nothing has made me happier than seeing the Wings defeat Manny Legace this year, so if Sens fans were thrilled at last night’s result for similar reasons, I understand. Scapegoatarama? Perhaps.
Anyway, the Sens were just “glad to get the W.”
Ted Kulfan/Detroit News
“That was our main concern,” said Jason Spezza, who had two Ottawa goals. “All the talk coming in was about facing Dom and how this would be our only trip to Detroit in three years, but we needed to find a way to win.”
Woops. My bad. He’s right. I’m sure there was no discussion about kicking Hasek butt prior to last night. Heck, maybe there wasn’t considering Ottawa got off only 22 shots. Ahhhhh....I hate games like that. 45 frigging shots.
Well...at least Ray Emery was slightly more honest.
Ottawa Sun
“It’s a special game playing against Dom, because of the legendary goalie he is and being a buddy of mine, a guy I’ve learned a lot off of,” Emery said. “It was special to play him.”
Yeah, special. You know...I just feel queezy when I see an athlete use the word “special.” Something about that just makes me want to, I don’t know, throw up? “Special.” That’s just “special.” It was a “special” night. I looked in the mirror and this blouse made me feel “special.”
So, that was fun. A few rants for you on this Wednesday morning. DC is nice. Kinda cool to drive in every morning and see the Capital Building all lit up. Traffic sucks.
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* A few admin notes: yes, posting will remain relatively light until I get my Commodore 64 shipped. Those of you with military experience who know the pain of awaiting household good shipments understand. Also, game recaps will be largely light until the family’s settled in and Center Ice again is a staple. I’m not going to try and describe action I listen to on the radio when all of you watched the game and can make me look even stupider than usual (like when I use the term “stupider").
*Also, ALSO, if you haven’t seen the news yet, AlanaH from VCOE is joining the Kukla Empire of Blogs. Welcome her. If you haven’t read her stuff, you’ll definitely enjoy her “special” wit.
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Comments
Agree with w2j2--unlike in many a game where we’ve seen the Wings put up gaudy shot totals but come up short, in this one they also undeniably had great chances. Also on the bright side, it’s nice to see Pavel coming around finally, huh? I did hope his OT goal last week would be a tide-turner.
Posted by Laura from Chicago on 12/13/06 at 12:17 PM ET
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The only adjective worse than “special” is ... “stunning!”
Every team is going to have these tough losses, when you dominate play only to lose to a goaltender who is having a stellar night. Spezza was also spectacular. The bad part is losing 2 points. The good part is the Wings played well, with a lot of determination.
Posted by w2j2 on 12/13/06 at 11:17 AM ET