October 6, 2008

The Wings beat the Buffalo Sabres 3-0 last night in what turned out to be a real snoozer, even for a pre-season tilt. There was potential for some fireworks, which I'll get to in a moment, but first I'd like to present a brief (okay, very brief) recap of the pre-season.

Wings ended up with a 6-2-1 record. Now, I'm not sure if this is the best record for this year's exhibition season, but it does indicate that the Wings are ready to defend their championship. The veterans looked good. The young guys looked good. The defense was solid. The players who are supposed to score were scoring. Bring on the Leafs.

Reed's Rundown (Observations from last night's game.)

• Johan Franzen continued his phenominal play with 2 goals, including an empty-netter. He came close to a hat trick when he had Ryan Miller beaten only to ring the puck off the post.
• Ty Conklin looked good. He has me rethinking my stance on giving Jimmy Howard the back-up job. Howard looked a little nervous during the games he played, while Conklin looked very confident and loose. Right now if Chris Osgood got hurt, I'd have to take Ty over Jimmy.
• As I mentioned earlier, there was potential for fireworks. Buffalo tough guy, Andrew Peters, gave Aaron Downey a cross-check that sent him flying into the boards. Downey got up, turned around ... and did nothing. (Okay, he cross-checked him back, but he may as well have done nothing.) Peters taunted Downey, practically daring him to drop the gloves, but Downey skated away. Now I realize there wasn't much to gain in fighting Peters at that point in the game. The Wings were up 2-0 in the third, and had the game pretty much on lock-down. What I DO have a problem with is Downey's refusal to give the fans some excitement. Would he have accepted Peters' challenge if this had been a regular-season game? Who knows. Maybe a better question is this: Would McCarty have dropped his gloves in this situation? I doubt it. Which leads me to believe this may be the only weakness in this team's armor. With all the offensive weaponry Detroit has, they need an enforcer who will not hesitate to kick some butt if someone takes liberties with our skill players. Aaron Downey is not the biggest or the toughest guy in the NHL, and Mac is definately past his prime. I would love to see the Wings trade for a real sheriff, but it probably won't happen. Not as long as they can counter roughness with a potent power-play.
• The way things are going in the toughness department, the Wings may as well go ahead and play Ville Leino. Why have an enforcer on the ice who's afraid to fight when you can have a guy with some skills out there instead.