Weekly Review: January 15-21, 2012

Game 1: Buffalo Sabres (@Home) - Win 5-0

Detroit came out swinging against the injured Sabres and they set the Franchise Record for longest Home winning streak with 15 straight home wins. The Wings gave Ryan Miller a warm welcome back to the Joe Louis arena scoring 5 goals on 14 shots before Miller got replaced with Jhonas Enroth. Enroth fared better stopping all 12 shots he faced. Jimmy Howard also looked good stopping all 22 shots for his 10th career shut-out.

Zetterberg, Franzen, Lidstrom, Bertuzzi, and Helm were goal scorers in this contest, Pavel Datsyuk and Todd Bertuzzi lead the Wings with 3 points each (3 Assists, and 1 Goal and 2 Assists respectively), and Drew Miller got an assist on the last goal that went passed his brother Ryan Miller.

Game 2: @Dallas Stars - Win 3-2 SO

Despite Detroit's excellent, record setting home play this year they have gone 11-13-0 on the road heading into this game. Finding wins on the road is imperative if Detroit wants to make a deep playoff run. Tomas Holmstrom opened the scoring with a blistering slap shot from the slot thanks to Jan Mursak chasing down a potential icing call and sending it to Justin Abdelkader who centred it to Holmstrom.

Brenden Morrow and Loui Eriksson erased the Detroit lead changing the score to 2-1 for the Stars.

It seemed as though Detroit was fired up as Jiri Hudler scored just 1:43 into the 2nd period with a backhand that bounced off Defencemen Alex Goligoski's skate and into the net. Scoring would stop there as the teams were then headed to overtime and later a shoot out. Once again Jiri Hudler would be the hero as he pulled the one-handed "Forsberg" deke on rookie goaltender Richard Bachman to become the only shoot out scorer.

Game 3: @Phoenix Coyotes - Win 3-2 SO

With this 3-2 SO win, 5 of the Wings last 7 games have been 3-2 wins in extra time and have obtained the NHL's best record. Additionally the Wings move to 13-13-0 on the road with this win, which is a good start if they want to match their home success this year at 18-2-1.

Raffi Torres opened the scoring for Phoenix sliding a wrap-around passed Jimmy Howard. Early in the 2nd period Ian White tied up the game with a beautiful slapshot from the point over the shoulder of Mike Smith. Todd Bertuzzi gave the Red Wings the lead with a slapshot of his own thanks to some crafty work from Pavel Datsyuk bringing it into the zone and Johan Franzen sending it from behind the net to Bertuzzi. The lead was short lived though as Gilbert Brule would even up the game with a nice wrester sending it to OT and shoot out.

Pavel Datsyuk was robbed by Mike Smith, but Todd Bertuzzi's spin-o-rama deke would put the icing on the cake for the Wings and give them their 5th straight win.

Jimmy Howard played amazing once again, stopping 31 of 33 shots and all shoot out attempts earning his 28th win of the season.

Game 4: Columbus Bluejackets (@Home) - Win 3-2 SO

It was a "Sweet Sixteen" for Detroit as they extended their Franchise best Home Winning Streak to 16 games, their win streak to 6 games, and also the third 3-2 shoot out win in row for the Wings. This game should have resembled the 5-0 blow-out over Buffalo rather than the recent close games against Phoenix, Chicago, and Dallas however a win is still a win. Perhaps the Wings were a bit tired coming back from a 2 game road trip, or playing a 8 games in two weeks was a bit much but the Wings looked a bit stagnant. An awkward rebound off of a Derrick Dorsett shot gave way to a goal by Ryan Russell to open the scoring for Columbus, however Niklas Kronwall was quick to answer back. After chasing down a lose puck he centred the puck to Jiri Hudler who head-maned the puck to Valterri Filppula as Kronwall bolted up the ice into the slot and one-timed a pass from Valterri into the net for his 10th of the year. Scoring was halted until the 2nd period when off a quick draw Nikita Nikitin wristed the puck past Jimmy Howard. Nicklas Lidstrom would end up tying the game (sending it to OT) with a beautiful slap shot which bounced off the end boards and banked off goalie Curtis Sanford. Lidstrom picked up his 10th goal on the play and Kronwall picked up his 2nd point of the game with the assist on that play.

Heading into overtime Jimmy Howard stood tall stopping 2 very good shots sending the game to a shoot out. After denying Datsyuk, Hudler and Bertuzzi it would be Valterri Filppula who would finally solve Sanford in the shoot out to put another tally in the win column for the Wings.

***

The Wings were a perfect 4-0-0 this week, however 3 of those wins went to the Shoot out and all of their games were against much weaker opponents. They did play 8 games in the last 14 days which could have contributed to their slight sluggishness but at the end of the day they found a way to win.