Red Wings at Blackhawks Game Thoughts

Some final thoughts on the Red Wings – Blackhawks matchup on Sunday night…

The Wings didn’t seem to get really moving until midway through the third period. Once they got going, they were really in control, but their best chances didn’t come until later in the game and were too little, too late.

Brian Rafalski had possibly his worst game as a Red Wing. My notes don’t have any specific instances but I remember several of his passes going off-target or being intercepted. That said, his role is to be a puck-moving defenseman, those kind of things are going to happen.

Chicago’s forecheck was better than Detroit’s.

The Red Wings took some awful hooking calls. I don’t mean ones that Mickey Redmond likes to complain about (though those were there for both teams), I mean unnecessary ones.

Nikolai Khabibulin outplayed Chris Osgood. Osgood had a decent game but Khabibulin made more big stops.

At least Henrik Zetterberg’s scoring streak continued. That’s been fun to watch and it’s good to see a Red Wing in the lead of the scoring race.