Detroit Redwings BEaGM (a re-start)

[Lestat]

Wings Offense powers them past the Sharks




This was game 40 for Detroit, next couple post will be a 40 game update stats, league standings, league leaders. This game i simmed periods 1 and 2 and then played the 3rd period.

[Lestat]

40 game update






Wings added Roloson to take over the backup position and he has played better than McDonald in his 2 games. The Wings need to work on defense rest of the season they sit in the bottom half of the league in GA and mid-pack on the penalty kill.

Quote:

We have to work our defense out or we will have a short playoff stay

-Coach Alcide

Wings made a couple lineup changes prior to their next game against Nashville.

Jonathan Ericsson will be a healthy scratch and Jakub Kindl will take his spot.

White will now be paried with Kronwall while rookie Brendan Smith will skate with Lidstrom.

Patrick Eaves will swap spots with Daniel Cleary. Eaves to 4th line, Cleary to the 3rd line.

[Lestat]

League at a glance

[Lestat]

Tomas Jurco's hattrick propels Wings




Detroit AP- Going into the 3rd period the Wings and Predators were tied 1-1 then rookie Tomas Jurco went to work. Jurco recently returned to team after sitting out with a neck injury scored his 1st NHL hattrick (natural hattrick) with 3 goals in he 3rd period. The only 3 goals by either team. Pekke Rinne started the game for Nashville but was pulled after the 1st period. The reason was still unknown. There was no apparent injury to Rinne and the score was only 1-0 after the 1st period.










This was game 41, i simmed the 1st two periods and then played the 3rd period.

[Lestat]

	LW	Ovr	C	Ovr	RW
LINE 1	V. Filppula	84	P. Datsyuk	93	T. Jurco
Stats	12g,27a,39p		20g,32a,53p		13g,8a,21p

Pavel Datsyuk is the man who leads this line and team each game. Datsyuk currently sits 3^rd in the league with his 52pts. On his left side Filppula has flourished playing on the wing. Moved from his natural center position to the wing Filppula has a little more freedom on offense and its paid off. On the right rookie Tomas Jurco didn’t start in this position, he was in Grand Rapids Dan Cleary occupied this spot but Cleary didn’t mesh well with Datsyuk and Filppula. So the team decided to give Jurco a shot and he has shown that he has the talent to stay with 13 goals in 25 games.

LINE 2	J. Franzen	85	H. Zetterberg	91	G. Nyquist	82
Stats	17g,13a,30p		15g,27a,42p		10g,19a,29p

The offense doesn’t drop off much from the top line to this line. At the beginning of the season this line carried the team. The Swedish connection line has they are called has shown great chemistry from the beginning. Franzen is the sniper on the line with his 17 goals, Zetterberg and Nyquist have chipped in nicely with 15g and 10g respectively.

LINE 3	T. Tatar	77	D. Helm	82	D. Cleary	83
Stats	8g,5a,13p		0g,3a,3p		7g,8a,15p

This is where you see a drop offensively sort of, even though rookie Tomas Tatar has 8 goals and Cleary has 7 Darren Helm hasn’t scored yet in 41 games. On the defensive side this line was expected to be better than they have showed so far. Things will have to improve in that area before the playoffs start.

LINE 4	J. Mursak	74	P. Regin	80	P. Eaves	78
Stats	0g,7a,7p		4g,2a,6p		6g,4a,10p

Not much was expected out of this line offensively and with 10 goals combined the line is pretty much on pace of what is needed from them. But like the 3^rd line this line has struggled in their own end.

	D	Ovr	D	Ovr
D1	N. Lidstrom	88	B. Smith	77
	8g,17a,20p		7g,26a,23p
D2	N. Kronwall	83	I. White	83
	3g,12a,15p		3g,21a,24p
D3	R. Murray	76	J. Kindl	80
	2g,5a,7p		0g,0a,0p

Overall the blue line group needs work defensively. Lidstrom the captain and leader of the team was a -1 until recently where he improved to 0. The offense is there Lidstrom 8goals, rookie Smith 7goals, Kronwall and White 3 goals each. The team may look to add a veteran defensive minded blue liner at the trade deadline if things do not improve. The team currently ranks 21^st in goals against and 14^th on the PK.

	G	Ovr
G	J. Howard	87
	19 - 10, 2.28gaa
BACKUP	D. Roloson	80
	2 - 0, 2.59gaa

Howard at times has looked great and other times alittle off. Dawyne Roloson was signed to take over the backup role as Joey McDonald struggled and was demoted to Grand Rapids.


Outlook: Overall the team is playing pretty well, they are top in the West and 1pt behind for #1 in the league. But defensively they will have to improve, something needs to be fixed. But I fully expect the team to be in the playoffs and hopefully make it to the West finals at the very least.

[Lestat]

Jimmy Howard shutout the Oilers

Jimmy Howard had a strong game and lead the Wings to a 3-0 shutout over the Oilers. Oilers came into the game with a 27-12-1 record. It was a matchup of 2 top teams in the West.

Tomas Tatar would score in the 1st period, his 9th goal on the season. This would prove to be the game winner.

[Lestat]

Howard strong against the Pens

Jimmy Howard stopped all but 1 shot against the Pens in leading the Wings to a 3-1 win. Two quick goals by the Wings late in the 2nd period had the Penguins on their heals. In the 3rd James Neal would captialize on a bad give away by Detroit near their goal. But Johan Franzen's 20th goal of the season would season would seal the victory for the Wings.

For this game i kept my sliders (Tzar's sliders with couple of tweaks) but went back to "Superstar" difficulty. I simmed the 1st period and half the 2nd then took over from there.

I am going to sim games up till trade deadline but will play a few games against some of the better teams during the sim. I will have a Trade Deadline update and then another big (standings, stats etc....) at end of the season.

[Lestat]

Detroit AP- Detroit suffered 2 injuries on the blueline recently. Brendan Smith was hurt in a game against Minnesota (1/23/2013). Smith suffered a MCL sprain and will be out until April 1, 2013. Niklas Kronwall suffered a concussion in a win against Nashville (2/25/2013) and is out untill Mar 13, 2013. Andrew Campbell (acquried in a trade earlier in the season ) was called up from Grand Rapids.


Detroit also traded Joey McDonald to Phoenix for their 2013 6th rd pick and 2014 4th rd pick. McDonald was in Grand Rapids sitting behind P. Mrazek and J. Pearce. He had lost his backup job after some bad starts.