The Detroit Red Wings defeated fellow Central Division and Original 6 team, the Chicago Blackhawks, last night at the Joe, 6-4. The following Wings scored (in order of goals): Pavel Datsyuk, Steve Yzerman, Mark Mowers, Henrik Zetterberg, Kris Draper, and Yzerman. Want to know more about what happened in the game? Read On the Wings’ and Abel to Yzerman’s game recaps.Aside from a Wings win, Chelios had another reason to celebrate yesterday. His son, Dean, had two assists in the Division 3 state championsip game, which his team won 4-0. Dean is a junior at my high school’s rival school, Cranbrook. My high school’s men’s basketball team won it’s district final game, 103-57, and will play next on March 15. It’s so weird being an alum and not at these games. Anyways, go Yellowjackets!
Okay, back to hockey. After coming close to scoring a hat trick last night, plenty of people have something to say about my favorite hockey player, The Captain. Here’s a collection of what they all had to say…
Steve Yzerman scored two goals (one a power play) for the Wings to lead the way. It was Yzerman’s first two-goal game of the season.”I just hope he can continue to get better,” said coach Mike Babcock of Yzerman, who raised his season total to nine goals. “He’s going to help us obviously. Guys want him to do well.”
Yzerman’s first goal, on a nice pass from Robert Lang, gave the Wings a brief 2-1 lead in the first period, and was one of the nicer goals of the night. “It was a great pass from Robert and I wasn’t really expecting it,” Yzerman said. “But it was nice for it to go in.”
Chicago captain Martin Lapointe, a former Red Wing, admired Yzerman’s performance. “He works so hard on every shift,” Lapointe said. “He keeps battling, blocking shots, he just plays so hard. I’m sure his body aches every morning he wakes up. But he just leads his team. It’s pretty to watch.”
Chicago coach Trent Yawney expects more from Yzerman after that.”He’s still one of the best leaders in the game,” Yawney said. “I wouldn’t judge him by what he’s done so far this year in terms of statistics, but I would watch in the playoffs what he does for this team.”
The first note I made after the 1st intermission was that Steve Yzerman looks very good. He’s moving better and he’s driving to the net more. Also, The Captain has turned into a mucker. He’s hanging around the crease, taking cross checks, waiting for dirty rebounds. We still see the patented pull-up along the wing, but more and more it seems he’s created a role for himself closer to the net.
Yzerman, who appears re-energized of late, continued the onslaught by scoring his second goal of the game with 7.2 seconds to play in the period during a two-man advantage. It was his ninth goal of the season.”He can continue to get better,” Babcock said. “I don’t know if he was necessarily better than he has been, except that he scored a couple of goals. The better he gets, it’s going to help us. The guys want him to do well.”
“It was nice to see,” Mowers said of Yzerman’s performance. “We know he can score some goals. I expect it’s going to happen more often towards the end of the season.”
On Yzerman’s first goal, he tapped in a sweet feed from Robert Lang after rookie defenseman Dustin Byfuglien lost the future Hall of Famer in front.“It was nice to see one go in, but Khabibulin almost made the save,” Yzerman said.
