Postgame Thoughts: Red Wings vs. Senators

I’m going to break my postgame thoughts into a couple sections here…

Pregame
The season opener always has some extra stuff attached to it that I usually find fun. The player introductions seemed more rushed than usual, though, and there’s no forgiving some of Budd Lynch’s mispronunciations. Danny Cleary’s name was mangled so badly that he didn’t even skate onto the ice, thinking someone else was called.

The ceremony honoring Brad McCrimmon was heartbreaking. I almost wish the team had done something different, that it would have been better not to drag his family out there. A framed jersey can’t mean much to them right now. That said, Beast’s son pulling on his dad’s jersey, that’s a bit of an iconic moment.

As I tweeted before the game, from an aesthetic standpoint I really don’t like the patch the Wings wore in honor of McCrimmon, Salei and Liv. It was lazy to just do the initials with no other imagery and the placement above the left sleeve numbers was awkward. If they had to go with that patch, it should have been above the tip of the wing on the chest, where the captains’ letters should go (which is a whole other design argument). A better option would have been a bigger patch on the shoulder of the jersey.

Early Game
The Wings took awhile to get rolling but once they got on the board, they were buzzing for the next 30 minutes. All four lines were clicking, too, which is something the Wings will need all season.

Todd Bertuzzi’s goal was a series of great plays. The shot was fantastic itself but that doesn’t happen without a perfect pass from Helm and a nice little play by Kindl to draw the attackers to him.

Cory Emmerton got his second goal in three career games. He’s not going to keep that pace up but it’s great to see hard work paying off.

Up until Ian White’s goal it was a very solid game for Detroit, you couldn’t poke many holes in it.

Late Game
And then it all fell apart.

The Red Wings kind of deflated after Milan Michalek scored to end Jimmy Howard’s shutout bid. It was a really fluky goal, kicked up and over Howard, dropping in behind him. Sometimes a team needs that, though, and the Sens took advantage.

Michalek added another on a Sens power play just a couple minutes later and Kuba notched a PPG to make the game look close.

It was too little, too late for Ottawa but if the Red Wings had that kind of let up in a game where they hadn’t scored as many goals, it’d be a different story.

Overall
Not a bad opening night. Good to get a win out of the way early and shake some rust off. Of course, the fact that it was a win makes it easier to say that.