2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread

Subject: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Wed Jun 04, 2008 7:50 pm

Post about your defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings right here!

Current Record: WON - 28; LOSS - 7; OT LOSS - 5 (61 points)
SO = SHOOT OUT; OT = OVER TIME

1st Place: Central Division

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ESPN schedule LINKS

Schedule and Results
(All Times Eastern)

October
10/9 vs. Toronto.....................Lose 2-3
10/11 at Ottawa....................WIN 3-2
10/13 at Carolina...................WIN 3-1
10/16 vs. Vancouver ..............Lose 3-4 (OT)
10/18 vs. NY Rangers.............WIN 5-4 (OT)
10/22 at St. Louis...................WIN 4-3
10/24 vs. Atlanta....................WN 5-3
10/25 at Chicago....................WIN 6-5 (SO)
10/27 at Los Angeles..............WIN 4-3 (SO)
10/29 at Anaheim....................Lose 5-4 (OT)
10/30 at San Jose....................Lose 2-4

November
11/02 at Vancouver.................WIN 3-2
11/08 vs New Jersey................WIN 3-1
11/11 vs Pittsburgh,.................Lose 6-7 (OT)
11/13 at Tampa Bay, ...............WIN 4-3
11/14 at Florida,.......................WIN 3-2
11/17 vs Edmonton, .................WIN 4-0
11/20 at Edmonton,...................WIN 4-3
11/22 at Calgary, ......................WIN 5-2
11/24 at Vancouver, ..................Lose 2-3 (OT)
11/26 vs Montreal, .....................Lose 1-3
11/28 vs Columbus, ...................WIN 5-3
11/29 at Boston, ........................Lose 1-4

December
12/01 vs Anaheim, ......................WIN 2-1
12/04 vs Vancouver, ...................WIN 6-5
12/06 vs Chicago, ...................... WIN 5-4 (SO)
12/10 vs Calgary, ....................... WIN 4-3 (OT)
12/12 at Dallas, ...........................Lose 1-3
12/13 at Phoenix, ....................... WIN 5-4 (SO)
12/15 vs Colorado, .......................Lose 2-3
12/18 vs San Jose, .......................WIN 6-0
12/20 vs Los Angeles, ..................WIN 6-4
12/23 vs St. Louis, ........................WIN 4-1
12/26 at Nashville, .........................Lose 2-3
12/27 at Colorado, .........................Lose 3-4 (SO)
12/30 vs Chicago, ..........................WIN 4-0

January
1/01 at Chicago, .............................WIN 6-4
1/03 at Minnesota, .........................WIN 3-2 (SO)
1/06 vs Columbus, ..........................WIN 3-0
1/08 vs Dallas, ................................WIN 6-1
1/10 vs Buffalo, 7:00 PM
1/12 at Dallas, 8:00 PM
1/14 at Anaheim, 10:00 PM
1/15 at Los Angeles, 10:30 PM
1/17 at San Jose, 10:30 PM
1/20 at Phoenix, 9:00 PM
1/27 at Columbus, 7:00 PM
1/29 vs Dallas, 7:30 PM
1/31 at Washington, 12:30 PM

February
2/02 vs St. Louis, 7:00 PM
2/04 vs Phoenix, 7:30 PM
2/07 vs Edmonton, 3:00 PM
2/08 at Pittsburgh, 3:00 PM
2/10 at Nashville, 8:00 PM
2/12 vs Minnesota, 7:30 PM
2/13 at Columbus, 7:00 PM
2/15 vs Colorado, 5:00 PM
2/18 vs Nashville, 7:30 PM
2/20 vs Anaheim, 7:30 PM
2/21 at Minnesota, 8:00 PM
2/25 vs San Jose, 7:30 PM
2/27 vs Los Angeles, 7:30 PM
2/28 at Nashville, 8:00 PM

March
3/03 at St. Louis, 8:30 PM
3/04 at Colorado, 9:00 PM
3/07 vs Columbus, 7:00 PM
3/10 vs Phoenix, 7:30 PM
3/12 vs Calgary, 7:30 PM
3/14 at St. Louis, 2:00 PM
3/15 at Columbus, 5:00 PM
3/17 vs Philadelphia, 7:30 PM
3/20 at Atlanta, 7:30 PM
3/23 at Calgary, 9:00 PM
3/24 at Edmonton, 9:30 PM
3/27 vs NY Islanders, 7:30 PM
3/29 vs Nashville, 5:00 PM

April
4/02 vs St. Louis, 7:30 PM
4/05 vs Minnesota, 5:00 PM
4/06 at Buffalo, 7:00 PM
4/09 vs Nashville, 7:30 PM
4/11 vs Chicago, 3:00 PM
4/12 at Chicago, 5:00 PM

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:26 pm

Thanks for making my thread sticky

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:26 pm

Let the Countdown Begin

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:45 am

Current odds to win the Stanley Cup (for you non-bettors, if you bet $100 you win whatever number of dollars is after the team's name AND you get your $100 back - the Red Wings are +500 so if you bet $100 on them and they win the Cup you get $600):

Anaheim Ducks
+1000

Atlanta Thrashers
+10000

Boston Bruins
+4000

Buffalo Sabers
+3000

Calgary Flames
+2000

Carolina Hurricanes
+3500

Chicago Blackhawks
+3500

Colorado Avalanche
+1800

Colombus Blue Jackets
+6000

Dallas Stars
+1800

Detroit Red Wings
+500

Edmonton Oilers
+5000

Florida Panthers
+5000

Los Angeles Kings
+10000

Minnesota Wild
+1800

Montreal Canadiens
+600

Nashville Predators
+3500

New Jersey Devils
+1500

New York Islanders
+6000

New York Rangers
+1200

Ottawa Senators
+1500

Philadelphia Flyers
+2000

Phoenix Coyotes
+6000

Pittsburgh Penguins
+600

San Jose Sharks
+1000

St Louis Blues
+6500

Tampa Bay Lightning
+4000

Toronto Maple Leafs
+8000

Vancouver Canucks
+3000

Washington Capitals
+1500

Wings

are favored. Those odds makers aren't stupid.
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Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:02 am

RED WINGS!

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Fri Sep 26, 2008 2:34 am

go redwings

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Sep 27, 2008 8:08 am

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 04, 2008 7:49 pm

I retitled the thread and added the schedule/results (at least part of it) to the first post.
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Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 04, 2008 7:51 pm

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Thu Oct 09, 2008 5:05 pm

Banner night for Wings

By HELENE ST. JAMES • FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER • October 9, 2008

The old guard handed the banner over to the new guard, the grizzled champions meeting the new ones on the ice.

The full richness of the Red Wings’ fabled hockey empire bloomed in red and white Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena, as the 2007-2008 Stanley Cup champions were crowned again, this time with a banner that made a long, slow, spot-lit journey from the ice to the rafters to celebrate the franchise’s 11th Stanley Cup.

The banner was brought out by the Production Line: Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio, along with former Wings Johnny Wilson, Dennis Hextall and Doug Brown. Captain Nicklas Lidstrom took one corner; his alternates – Pavel Datsyuk, Kris Draper and Henrik Zetterberg – took the others.

The ceremony lasted barely 20 minutes; a blink, really, compared to what it took to earn it.

“You know it was lots of hard work to get that banner up to the roof, so it’s just a great feeling,” Tomas Holmstrom said. “There was lots of hard work behind it, so you have to soak everything in.”

There were big cheers for the introductions of general manager Ken Holland, the man who put the team together, and his assistant, Jim Nill, the man who helped uncover draft gems like Datsyuk and Zetterberg, and for vice president and former captain Steve Yzerman, who was with the players for the previous three banner raisings.

Lidstrom led in the parade of players, who were introduced one by one. Chris Chelios, at 46 older than his own head coach, got a rousing greeting, as did Chris Osgood, who left Detroit only to come back a better goalie. Darren Helm and Aaron Downey joined the gathering, too, coming up from their recent assignments to Grand Rapids and Dallas Drake and Dominik Hasek eschewed retirement for one more trip onto the ice.

A video retrospective followed: Zetterberg’s journey to claim the Conn Smythe trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs. Lidstrom’s brilliant season, leading to his sixth Norris trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman. Datsyuk’s dominance at both ends of the ice while rarely taking a penalty, which garnered him the Selke and Lady Byng trophies.

All those trophies were on the ice, forming a circle around the winged logo. Only the biggest one, the Stanley Cup, was absent, until Lidstrom brought it out, setting off flashes from cameras and phones throughout the sold-out stands.

Within minutes of the end, the ice had been cleared, the anthems sung, and the puck dropped against Toronto. The last cheer was bestowed on newcomer Marian Hossa, who spurned staying with the Penguins and rejected bigger and richer offers to join the Wings for one season, thus giving them an even better chance of repeating as champions.

From training camp in September of 2007 to the triumph in June of 2008, the Wings spent some 10 months putting in night after night of hard work. This night, then, harked back to those months, and heralded the many ahead.

“It’s important we enjoy the celebration,” coach Mike Babcock said, “but the celebration is all about last year.”

The banner in place, a new season’s promise waits.

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Thu Oct 09, 2008 7:08 pm

Too bad the Wings lost

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Thu Oct 09, 2008 7:09 pm

Maple Leafs looked good tonight

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:09 pm

Red Wings losing 2-1 to the Senators with 15:42 left in the 3rd

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:14 pm

13:32 left

Senators Power Play

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:15 pm

Senators Penalty

4-4 for 34 seconds

Then Wings PP

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:20 pm

10:17 left

Still 2-1 Senators

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:21 pm

9:51 left in the Third

2-1 Senators

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:24 pm

Red Wings Score

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:25 pm

Franzen Ties it up

2-2 GAME

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:31 pm

2:52 left

2-2 Game

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:34 pm

1:50 left

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:35 pm

Red Wings Score

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:36 pm

Franzen does it again with 1:17 left

3-2 Wings

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:37 pm

Senators pull their goalie

22 seconds left

Face off to the left of Osgood

Time Out Wings

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:38 pm

13.1 seconds

Another Face off

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:39 pm

Red Wings Win

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:40 pm

Final Score

Red Wings 3

Senators 2

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sun Oct 12, 2008 5:20 am

Saturday, October 11, 2008
Red Wings 3, Senators 2
Wings get first victory of season
Dave Dye / The Detroit News

OTTAWA, Ontario -- Johan Franzen still has the scoring touch.

Franzen scored two goals, including the winner with 1:17 remaining, as the Red Wings rallied for a 3-2 victory over the Senators on Saturday night before 20,182 at Scotiabank Place.

It saved the defending Stanley Cup champions from an 0-2 start.

They have "The Mule" to thank.

He scored 15 goals in his final 16 regular-season games last season, then added 13 goals in 16 playoff games.

It appears he's picking up right where he left off.

"Hopefully it's back," Franzen said. "I definitely didn't feel it the last game (a 3-2 opening loss at home to Toronto). I had a lot of chances. I shot right at the goalie every time.

"Hopefully, I will carry this with me and get the confidence back."

Get it back? It looks like it never left.

"It was gone for one game at least," Franzen said.

Getting greedy, huh?

"Probably," Franzen said, smiling.

Coach Mike Babcock wasn't all that impressed with Franzen's overall performance in these first two games.

Franzen, a 6-foot-2, 210-pound left wing, gained a reputation as more of a checking forward before his scoring suddenly took off late last season.

"The Mule's got to understand the reason he's so good is because he's big and physical," Babcock said. "He's got to be big and physical and the rest of the stuff will come."

It finally did come when the Wings caught Ottawa making a line change with the Senators leading 2-1.

Henrik Zetterberg tapped a pass ahead to Franzen, who put a wicked shot into the upper corner from the faceoff circle.

"I was dead tired in my legs," Franzen said. "I only made it to the circle. I had to fire from there. I saved enough energy to get a good shot away at least."

Ottawa goalie Martin Gerber made 38 saves, but the shot he'll likely remember most is the final one by Franzen -- it deflected off Gerber and trickled into the net for the winning goal.

The shot was a little bit longer than Franzen's first goal, and it changed direction after hitting Filip Kuba.

"It was a lucky one," Franzen said. "It got deflected off the defenseman's stick. I was shooting for the first (near) post and it got deflected to the other post. That was a tough play for him."

The Red Wings (1-1) came out skating like a champion that was a little annoyed with itself for its performance two days earlier.

The Wings outshot the Senators, 17-6, in the first period.

Ottawa, however, took a 1-0 lead on Alexandre Picard's slap shot from the top of the faceoff circle on a two-man advantage.

Valtteri Filppula tied the score when he ripped a shot off the goal post past Gerber. The play started with a giveaway in the Wings' end. Dan Cleary and Mikael Samuelsson attacked quickly in transition to create the opportunity for Filppula.

Like Toronto's Vesa Toskala Thursday in Detroit, Gerber frequently frustrated the Wings. The Senators (1-1-1) gained some momentum when they killed a two-man disadvantage for 67 seconds in the second period.

Nick Foligno, son of former Wing Mike Foligno, gave Ottawa a 2-1 lead when he broke in during a four-on-four and got to the net by jumping between Niklas Kronwall and Filppula.

With the way Gerber was playing, it appeared the Wings were in trouble.

That is until Franzen, who has developed a knack for scoring big goals, came to the rescue.

"Gerber was fantastic," Babcock said. "He made save after save in the first period to keep them in the game.

"It was a good game for us to find a way to win. It was important we had to really work hard to do it as well.

"We need to find our work ethic and our passion again. It doesn't carry over from year to year. You've got to find it again. I thought we took a good step here tonight."

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Sun Oct 12, 2008 11:11 am

Subject: Re: 2008-2009 Detroit Red Wings Thread Tue Oct 14, 2008 11:20 am

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Red Wings 3, Hurricanes 1
Conklin solid in season debut for Wings
Dave Dye / The Detroit News

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Backup goalie Ty Conklin wasn't overworked by any means, but he was severely tested at times.

And he passed the test in his Red Wings debut.

Conklin made 27 saves Monday night to lead the Wings to a 3-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes at the RBC Center.

"There's always more nerves than usual that first game with a new team," said Conklin, who was signed as a free agent after playing last season with the Pittsburgh Penguins. "You always want to impress, too.

"It's nice to contribute. And it's nice to play two or three games into the season as opposed to seven or eight or 10 games into the season."

Nicklas Lidstrom and Tomas Holmstrom scored power-play goals for the Wings. Henrik Zetterberg added an empty-net goal. Defenseman Joseph Corvo (Western Michigan) scored for the Hurricanes.

Since losing their opener at home, the Wings are 2-0 on the road, including a 3-2 victory Saturday at Ottawa. They're also 9-2 on the road going back to the final game against the Nashville Predators in the first round of last season's playoffs.

The Wings flew to Washington D.C. after the game and are scheduled to visit with President Bush this afternoon at the White House. Their next game is Thursday against the Vancouver Canucks at Joe Louis Arena.

Ideally, Babcock plans to play Conklin every third game in relief of starter Chris Osgood.

"My play will dictate if that holds up," Conklin said. "If I'm not playing well, he's not going to play me."

Babcock said: "If one guy's on fire and one guy can't stop a beach ball, things change."

For now, the plan is to give Conklin more than 25 starts.

Babcock decided it would be extremely beneficial in Conklin's case to give him a game early in the season.

"It was more about getting the weight of the world off him," Babcock said. "Now, next time he plays, he'll feel real good. In my opinion, the job he did in Pittsburgh last year, he's not a backup goalie. He's just a good goalie."

With Holmstrom being as disruptive as ever in front of net on a power play, Lidstrom drove a hard slap shot into the corner past goalie Cam Ward for a 1-0 lead after the Hurricanes had failed to clear the puck.

Lidstrom also was at his Norris Trophy-winning best late in the first period to help kill a 5-on-3 disadvantage. He even drew a penalty in the process to negate the Hurricanes' power play.

The Hurricanes tied the score in the first minute of the second period when Ray Whitney dug the puck out of the corner on a 4-on-4 and set up Corvo coming down the middle.

A couple minutes later, the goal light went on, the siren went off and Hurricanes fans roared. They thought their team had taken the lead.

It was all quite an amusing reaction to a brilliant save by Conklin on Brandon Sutter to stop a nice 2-on-1 break.

The inadvertent goal light triggered all the commotion, but play continued thanks to Conklin, who wasn't concerned about the hoopla.

"I felt the puck hit my pad pretty hard," he said. "And I saw it in the corner."

The Wings later regained the lead, 2-1, with a passing clinic on the power play. The last part of it found defenseman Brian Rafalski putting the puck on Marian Hossa's stick low on the faceoff circle. Hossa then quickly moved it to the slot for Holmstrom, who scored his third goal in three games.

"That was great," Hossa said. "It was a nice tic-tac-toe."

Said Babcock: "I really thought our power play (2-for-6) was good. We had a four-minute power play and we didn't score on it, but the first half of it we had so many chances it wasn't even funny."

Carolina (2-1) picked up some momentum by killing off that four-minute disadvantage. Conklin made another great save, this time with the glove, when Brandon Sutter broke loose shorthanded on a 2-on-1.

You can reach Dave Dye at dave.dye@detnews.com