Wild vs Red Wings 11/19/2010

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STATS LLCBalanced scoring has been a staple of the Detroit Red Wings this season, but Danny Cleary's production is a welcome surprise.

Cleary looks to extend a pair of career-high scoring streaks and help the Red Wings continue their dominance of the Minnesota Wild on Friday night.

Detroit (12-3-1) has received goals from 16 players, but Cleary is the surprise leader with nine after he had 15 last season.

One more goal will put the right wing halfway to his career high set in consecutive seasons from 2006-08, and his recent play gives reason to believe he can get there quickly.

Cleary has put together career-high streaks of six consecutive games with a goal and eight with at least one point. He's totaled eight goals and four assists over the last eight games after scoring twice in Wednesday's 7-3 win over St. Louis.

Detroit has received eight two-goal games this season from seven players with Cleary the only one to get two, and both have come in the last three contests.

"I don't know how to explain it. Other than the line is playing good and I feel healthy and I feel good on the ice," Cleary said. "When I get the puck, I'm trying to shoot it on the net and good things will happen."

Cleary is a major reason the Red Wings have won the first four of this six-game homestand, which concludes against Calgary on Sunday.

Detroit is 8-1-1 at home, and Cleary may be in position to continue his outstanding surge with a visit from Minnesota (9-6-2). In 36 games against the Wild, he has 11 goals and 25 points, one fewer than his personal best versus Columbus.

Detroit has dominated Minnesota in the last 18 meetings, going 14-2-2. The club also holds a 13-3-1 advantage with a tie in the all-time series at Joe Louis Arena.

The Wild are looking to ride their luck to a third consecutive win after beating Anaheim 2-1 on Wednesday on a goal that bounced off of Antti Miettinen's shoulder with 1:24 remaining in overtime.

"We're staying in games, but we can't be too fooled by ourselves either," coach Todd Richards said. "We're finding ways to win, you've got to give the guys credit for that. But we have to be better. We have to be more consistent in our play."

Minnesota's consecutive wins were also sparked by Niklas Backstrom, who gave up two goals on 66 shots and has a 1.91 goals-against average this season.

Backstrom, however, is expected to be rested Friday as Richards gives backup Jose Theodore his fourth start.

Theodore is 1-2-0 with a 3.02 GAA, but has won two of his last three meetings with Detroit behind a 2.35 GAA.

Similar to Cleary, Cal Clutterbuck is the Wild's surprise scoring leader with six goals after getting a career-high 13 last season. The right wing has four goals over the last six games.

He has one goal in eight meetings with Detroit.

Wild NEED to score 5on5 with the Wings to hang in there. I am saying this is going to be a 4-2 Red Wing win.

Wholley crap! They're up 2-0 @ Detroit early in the 2nd?!?!

2-1 now, but they are looking really good tonight. keep this effort through the third and we will get a W.

tied 3-3, captain koivu showing why he is captain.

And OT Wild win it 4-3.

shaky start to the 3rd, but good fight to come back and win it.

Wild vs. Red Wings post-game and more

Persistent Wild overcome mid-game let down to stun the Red Wings in 4-3 overtime thriller

Written by Derek Felska
Friday, 19 November 2010 08:14

Consider this an official warning but I am about to get on my soap box. Now while that may not seem all that unusual for a hockey blog, but this normal set up is going to stray a little bit from tonight's game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Minnesota Wild. So anyways, here we go.

I was randomly checking out Yahoo! hockey blogger 'Puck Daddy' Greg Wyshynski and I noticed an article of his pertaining to the recent withdrawal of press credentials by the New York Islanders to long-time hockey writer / blogger Chris Botta. You can see 'Puck Daddy's' article here.

This may not seem all that noteable but as a person who blogs as well as really has been wanting for that elusive opportunity of press credentials it sort of struck a chord. While the NHL has no universal policy regarding bloggers as it has left that decision up to the league's 30 teams and I can assure you each team handles bloggers very differently. Some teams are extremely open to bloggers while others treat them like 2nd class people. Teams certainly hold the right to give credentials to those journalists and bloggers they wish, and in all honesty I don't have a big problem with that whole idea, yet it seems a bit weak that a team would suddenly revoke any journalist / bloggers credentials simply because they wrote a few unflattering articles about their organization. Afterall, is a journalist supposed to have integrity and report what they see with a level of objectivity? Apparently this is not the case on Long Island and that is very disturbing. The New York Islanders are currently at the bottom of the NHL's standings, just fired their head coach Scott Gordon and look to be spiraling towards another abysmal season. That wouldn't be so bad but this team has been bad for quite a while and it help doesn't appear to be right around the corner either. Islanders General Manager Garth Snow seems to be on the hot seat and now the team axes the credentials of its most notable team-focused blogger. Botta is not your typical A blogger who actually used to be officially sponsored by the team as well as being a former member of the team's management for nearly 2 decades so you can see how this move is both surprising as well as coming off as rather harsh. Hockey fans are passionate people, but they also respect honesty no matter how brutal it may be towards their favorite team. I understand every team has its share of 'homers' too, but I think its wrong to revoke a writer / blogger's press credentials just because they're not writing glowing articles about your organization. Honestly, when the team's record is 4-11-3 as the Islanders currently stand how much positive things are really left to say?

Fans like Botta and myself spend lots and lots time attempting to provide frequent entries for fellow fans to digrest and with the exception of a very few, for virtually no compensation other than the love of the game. This is no slight to Bloguin, Most Valuable Network or even Yahoo!, but most bloggers make nothing at all, and they provide plenty of insight that often many mainstream media sources often utilize or reference. We're not martyrs to our sport, but there is certainly a significant comitment of time and energy. I am not trying to say anything as grandiose that we're necessary for the league, but the NHL could use all the media coverage it can get, whether on the blogosphere or otherwise. Yet like any journalist, most bloggers tend to call things as they see them. I must admit, I too temper some of my opinions to a degree to not come off as some sort of message board rant but I still will not hesitate to criticize or give credit to those that deserve it. However, the Islanders apparently do not want that type of writer to cover their team. No fan wants to bash their favorite team yet if the team is performing poorly on the ice, front office, etc what sort of fan would they be if they did not call them out on it? If that writer / blogger continues to walk the company line and write only favorable articles they would be labeled a "Kool Aid" drinker and few would take them seriously because they can't be objective enough to say something is wrong or needs to be fixed. The same could be said of the fan who constantly is negative and eventually their message is lost because people see them as a 'hater' which means there has to be a balance. So with all that being said, is the Islanders position so fragile that they fear a blogger may poke holes in their practices or do they have the cajones as an organization to withstand that? Clearly the Islanders chose the former and for that they have pushed away a fairly well-respected member of their fanbase. So what if he's being critical, so what if he's asking tough questions, but what did the Islanders expect this guy to do? To back down or beg for his credentials back. Now that he's back on the "comfort of his couch" he has nothing else to do but needle this organization even more vociferously than before. Does a team that has amongst the worst attendance in the league wish to push any of its fans farther away than it already has with its string of horrible seasons? Apparently Islanders owner Charles Wang does, apparently GM Garth Snow does. While they certainly can stymie Botta's access they can't stymie his blogs followers and they may start something far more intense and pointed than a few questions from a blogger or writer. At least its something you hope they considered before making the move that they did. End of rant...

Pheew, now that I've gotten that off my chest a few quick notes about tonight's game against the Detroit Red Wings. It marks the return of Brent Burns to the Wild's lineup after a two game suspension for breaking Florida's Steve Bernier's orbital bone in a stupid stick to the face that has already prompted a roster move in the reassignment of Justin Falk to the Houston Aeros. Marco Scandella, who certainly possesses a bit better puck skills than the more seasoned Falk has played well as of late and will very much be tested tonight against Detroit who again looks like an elite team. The Red Wings have that lethal combination of a prolific and balanced offense and a stingy defense which really puts a ton of pressure on their opponents to decide which poison is the more palatable one. The Wild are still amongst one of the league's lowest scoring teams, but they've had success against some of the best teams in the league thus far. Traditionally the Wild have not fared well at Joe Louis Arena, but who knows, this team seems to have the ability to surprise as of late. So will they surprise us with a win tonight? (click on the link for the rest of the article)

Wow, pretty good game tonight. Although listening to the Detroit feed was brutal. I have an Aeros report to go along with everything else. Enjoy!