The Detroit Red Wings sure looked good in front of their home crowd tonight destroying the Penguins 4-0. The game easily could have been 7 or 8-0 if not for some lucky breaks and a bad call by the refs. The first period had the Penguins on the Power Play four times putting up 8 of their 12 first period shots on the power play but coming up empty-handed. Late in the 1st period the Red Wings thought they scored a goal when Datsyuk set up Lidstrom who beat Fleury high to the short-side. The refs waived off the goal and gave Tomas Holmstrom a penalty for goalie interference. The call was totally bogus as Holmstrom brushed Fleury with his stick and never actually interfered or impeded Fleury’s ability to make the save.
The 2nd period saw the Red Wings completely take over the game. From the 2nd period on, the Red Wings outshot the Penguins 25-7, and outscored the Penguins 4-0. Mikael Samuelsson scored a brilliant wrap-around goal with a bunch of tired Penguin’s players on the ice. Ruutu had a chance to step into Samuelsson as he came around the net, but half-assed his way there and allowed an easy wrap-around goal. The 2nd period ended 1-0 in favor of the Red Wings.
The 3rd period continued just as the 2nd period ended with the Red Wings dominating. Mikael Samuelsson scored his second goal of the game on a great fore-checking play, which resulted in a turnover by the Fleury and he slapped in his second unassisted goal of the game. With time starting to run low, Daniel Cleary added a nifty shorthanded goal going top corner on his backhand. And with less than 20 seconds left, Henrik Zetterberg scored on a killer shot over Fleury’s glove. All in all, this game was dominated by the Red Wings. From this recap you can see that Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin’s names don’t appear much. That is because the Red Wings collectively shut the two all stars down. They had very little skating room and were only effective on the power play. Game 2 will be in Detroit on Monday night at 7:30/4:30.
