Wings 2, Stars 2

The Wings threw away two one-goal leads on the way to a 2-2 tie with the Stars last night in Dallas. Manny Legace made the start for the Wings. The Wings opened up the game fairly strong, as did the Stats. They had some pretty good scoring chances and both teams skated well. Pavel Datsyuk opened the scoring at 7:32 with his 24th goal of the season and 50th point. He beat Turco cleanly from the top of the left circle while skating in by himself. Turco probably should have had that one since it wasn't quite on the same level as The Goal of earlier this year. The Wings then went on to blow two full minutes of a double-minor power play before finally getting some half-decent chances in the second half. That power play was indicative of the others for the rest of the night. The Wings got very little done on the power plays because they could get almost no set-up. The Stars tied it up at 18:34 on the power play when David Oliver scored. Manny Legace had no chance on the goal because it was deflected a couple times before reaching him. The Wings had a slighly more productive power play at the end of the period but nothing too exciting. The Wings started the second finishing up that last power play but again, got nothing done. This is when the Stars really started to play better than the Wings. They had a very good forecheck going that had the Wings hard pressed to get out of their own zone. This lead to some good scoring chances on the part of the Stars, especially one where Brett Hull turned the puck over at the blue line, thinking Pavel Datsyuk was trailing. Fortunately, Manny was able to make the saves for the entire period and the Wings' defense was able to hang on if only just barely. Tomas Holmstrom scored the go-ahead goal at 3:11 of the third period but the Stars came back to score the final goal at 13:48. This goal was deflected as well but was more the result of some mistakes comitted by the Wings. I was not able to watch much of the third period so I can't explain exactly why it happened but the Wings put themselves in the position to give up a goal. Unfortunately, Dave Lewis put Datsyuk, who was awful on faceoffs all night (3-for-17) in at center for the defensive zone faceoff. Of course, Pavel lost it and Teppo Numinen scored the goal. Datsyuk had a rough night especially against the much bigger Jason Arnott. His biggest problem is his lack of size and while it may not come in to play in the open ice, it does have a very negative effect on his faceoff abilites. Lewis should know better than to have him out there in such important situations. The Captain and Kris Draper should be the ones taking those types of faceoffs. Come on, Dave. Next up: New Jersey, Thursday, 7:30 EST Freep | News | ESPN | Box Score Lines- Zetterberg-Draper-Whitney Shanahan-Yzerman-Maltby Thomas-Datsyuk-Hull Holmstrom-Mowers-Dandenault Fischer-Chelios Lidstrom-Schneider Rivers-Woolley "pp"- Shanahan-Datysuk-Hull Holmstrom-Yzerman-Whitney Lidstrom-Zetterberg Woolley-Schneider Fischer-Chelios Lidstrom-Woolley PK- Draper-Maltby Zetterberg-Whitney Shanahan-Yzerman Lidstrom-Chelios Fischer-Schneider OT- Shanahan-Yzerman Datsyuk-Hull Zetterberg-Whitney Fischer-Chelios Lidstrom-Schneider Fischer-Woolley LIdstrom-Woolley Net- Manny Legace