Comments on: Sharks earn another OT win, take 1-0 series lead against Red Wings

By: polegojim

polegojim — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:28:22 +0000

Actually huge difference on Deroit. The Wings are much deeper, we’ll see it come out.

Need some hair-triggers machine guns out there. Stop looking for the ‘perfect’ pass.
Bombs away. Niemi makes mistakes when he gets flustered.

By: dreadpiratesteve

dreadpiratesteve — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 18:32:19 +0000

Curious to see the game tomorrow. Not sure if 8 days off made Detroit rusty or if the superior athleticism of SJ was the cause for the Wings flat play. They looked awfully old and slow last night. No physicality as well by the Wings.

By: polegojim

polegojim — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 13:52:32 +0000

Sharks earned it.

You won’t many Wings fans whining about penalties. The calls against Eaves and Bert were ‘make up’ calls from the missed/bad calls against the Sharks earlier. It happens.

Wings could have/should have won behind Howards stellar effort. Way too many puck handling mistakes, lack of clearing out the puck.

Tentative Wings play. Too much passing when a clear shot was present. Too much time off.

By: seeingwhatsticks

seeingwhatsticks — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 07:41:15 +0000

The Wings’ problem is lack of foot speed among their top 6 and on the back end, in all likelihood because of age. Other than Datsyuk (who is Datsick) the Wings’ best players really can’t keep up with the top 3 lines of the Sharks, who are very tough to beat when the Wellwood-Pavelski-Mitchell line is buzzing, drawing penalties, and scoring the way they were tonight. The result of the Wings not being able to keep up is a fairly steady stream to the penalty box, which is what happened last year and started to happen tonight even though the Wings were so well rested. I think the Wings still have enough talent to beat just about anyone in a 7 game series so they shouldn’t be counted out, but when you start looking at the birth dates of their best players it becomes a lot harder to see them winning 4 7 game series in a row. This is the last gasp for this great core of players in Detroit if the championship window hasn’t already been slammed shut.

When you look at these two teams compared to what they were last year, they are both almost entirely the same. Couture and Demers have emerged for the Sharks, the aforementioned Wellwood-Pavelski-Mitchell line is a much bigger scoring threat than any third line the Sharks have had recently, and Ian White is probably a slight step up from what Rob Blake was by the end of last season. Likewise the Wings have seen Helm and Cleary step up, and Howard has a year under his belt, but the key guys are all a year older. I guess what I’m saying is that neither team is dramatically different from what they were in the playoffs last year, and since then the Sharks are 7-2 against the Red Wings. At some point it’s not a fluke anymore and when you start going position by position I don’t see where the Wings have a big advantage in any position group.

By: dreadpiratesteve

dreadpiratesteve — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 06:00:20 +0000

Calls in this one were soft for both teams. Wings fans can complain but there were missed calls on both sides. San Jose was by far the better team and outplayed Detroit nearly the entire game. Jimmy Howard was the only reason it went to overtime.