6-2 Shellacking of the Stars

The Wings backed up their 3-0 victory against the Hawks with a strong performace against the struggling Stars. Yzerman had 2 goals, Schneider 1, newcomer Thomas had 1 in his first game since dominating the Wings in the playoffs last season, and Pavel Datsyuk had 2 goals, his last being a highlight-reel breakaway in which he faked the puck like it was on a string and undressed Turco. It was a great effort by the Wings. We got a shorthanded goal (Schneider), and went 2/3 on the power play. The only facet of the game that disturbed me was that the Stars hit the goalpost 3 times, which doesn't bother me except that it made the game seem a little closer than the score reflects. But, then again, Williams had a goal that the refs failed to call, and replay officials were afraid to call it one, so they called the replay "inconclusive," which is BS, because I saw white between the puck and the goal line. Nevertheless, it was a stellar performance for the Wings. I really was pleased with Thomas coming in and chiping in, and Bootland and Devereaux also had a great game. Hasek had a couple "slinky-as-a-spine" saves, but that was also the death of him on at least one of the Stars' goals, where he was caught on his back as a rebound came out. I guess this shows that the Wings can play extremely well in an offensively-open game versus top teams like Dallas (even though they're struggling now, I still consider them a top threat), Colorado, St Louis, but they also need to find ways to win against teams that practice neutral zone boredom and force puck stoppages as much as possible. These are the expansion teams we've all come to love, like Nashville and Columbus. Hopefully they can bring this type of effort into Chicago Friday night, and then against the Wild and Columbus in the next games---which could be a good test for the Wings against bogged-down, choppy-play teams.