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NBC Game of the Week: Blackhawks vs. Red Wings

Patrick Sharp, Jimmy Howard

Chicago Blackhawks winger Patrick Sharp (10) beats Detroit Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard (35) for the winning goal in a shootout during an NHL hockey game, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

AP

Chicago Blackhawks vs Detroit Red Wings
12:30 p.m. EST - Sunday, March 7, 2010
Live on NBC

It’s a battle of the new versus the old this week on NBC, as the Detroit Red Wings travel to Chicago to take on the Blackhawks. Detroit has long stood on top of the Western Conference and have not lost a division title since the 1999-2000 season. This year, it appears that not only will Chicago finally overtake the Red Wings for tops in the division, but Detroit may face the possibility of not making the playoffs.

Just two points back of #1 seed San Jose, the Hawks are hoping to get back into top playing form after weeks of just barely finding ways to win. The young and speedy team has the talent to overcome most mistakes now, but when the pressure is on in the playoffs they’ll need to play much better hockey in order to get to their ultimate goal.

On the other side, an older and injury-plagued Detroit team found itself mired in the dredges at the bottom of the conference before a wild January pushed them back up the standings. Yet some stumbles heading into the break put their playoff chances in doubt, and while a nice win on the first game back from the Olympics pushed them into 8th spot Wednesday’s shellacking at the hands of Vancouver cast questions once again on Detroit’s chances.

After the jump, we take a look at the season series so far, tease the major storylines of the game, and examine what the local press are saying about these two teams.

Image (2) Huet-thumb-200x300-6737.jpg for post 109

As the Blackhawks have rebuilt over the past few years, the Red Wings have not only owned the division but the season series against Chicago as well. This season, just as with the overall standings, the roles have been reversed.

Chicago is 3-1-0 against Detroit this season (one win coming in a shootout), including back to back 3-0 shutouts of the Wings in a home and home series in December. Not surprisingly, the Blackhawks are scoring at a much higher clip than Detroit (3.20 goals/game to 2.59).

Yet Detroit and Chicago are nearly neck and neck on the power play, with Chicago 7th in the NHL (19.7%) and Detroit 10th (19.1%). The difference in special teams comes on the penalty kill where Chicago is near the top of the pack while Detroit sits at 15th.

It would seem that Detroit has the best chance to keep up with the more talented teams in the NHL when they are given time on special teams, as their 5-on-5 goals against ratio (0.88) is 25th in the league. The key to beating Detroit then, is to stay out of the penalty box and force them to play at even strength, where they are far from their best.

Before these two teams face off on Sunday, they’ll both play tonight. Chicago will take on Vancouver, where they hope to get back on track as they start the run to the playoffs. The Hawks won on Wednesday night yet allowed two goals on 14 shots, giving more credence to the main issue surrounding this team: the goaltending. But nothing is going to change now.

“This is our team now and we know nothing is going to change,” Toews said. “We’re happy about that and we can get comfortable and concentrate on the last 20 games.”

While the goaltending of Cristobal Huet and Antti Niemi was under the microscope leading up to the trade deadline, the Hawks’ all-around team defensive play has slipped in the last month.

“Our goaltenders are the ones taking the heat, but we need to play better in front of them,” Toews said.

“Our goaltending has been fine,” Quenneville said. “We’ve given up more goals over this recent stretch and I think collectively we should all feel some responsibility to improve that area. It’s something we’re going to stress going into now and through the stretch run.”

On the other side, the Red Wings are not giving any excuses for the rough season so far.

“For a long time this year we had so many injuries that we just battled to stay alive,” he said. “We don’t now. There’s no reason for us not to be a good hockey club. So will and determination, leadership and coaching, all these things, you look at them and you can’t give them a very good mark.”

Perhaps they thought everything would be fine and back to normal after the Olympic break, when virtually everyone was healthy.

“I hope that’s not the case,” Niklas Kronwall said. “We can’t have it that way. You can’t just look at the guy sitting next to you and (think), ‘Now he’s back, he’s going to do it all.’ We have to look ourselves in the mirror and do whatever you can to help this team win. We all have to play at our highest level to be able to pull this through.”

It looked as if the Red Wings were back on track on Monday night with a big win over Colorado, but the bad loss to Vancouver has put the pressure right back on. With teams in the West grouped so tightly towards the bottom of the standings (Detroit has just a 2 point lead on 13th place Minnesota) every win becomes much more important.

NBC Star Cam - Follow Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk with NBC’s Star Cam. Head on over to NBC Sports during the game to follow your favorite stars through out the game.

Sunday on Pro Hockey Talk:

  • Have the Detroit Red Wings missed their window at another Cup win?
  • Will the Blackhawks’ goaltending situation keep them from getting to the Stanley Cup finals?
  • Injury updates for both teams
  • News and opinion from around NBC Sports
  • A live in-game chat with Brandon Worley and James O’Brien

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