Postgame: Red Wings @ Predators – Game 2 – 4/13

I wasn’t near a computer at all tonight but I saw the whole game, so I’ll be going from memory for my postgame notes since I didn’t write anything during the game.

I was proven wrong about a lot of things tonight. I was absolutely certain that the Red Wings wouldn’t physically respond to Shea Weber after he rammed Henrik Zetterberg’s head into the glass to close out Game One on Wednesday. Instead, we had Todd Bertuzzi going toe-to-toe with him just 1:36 in.

I’ve been complaining about Brad Stuart and Johan Franzen and Cory Emmerton. Emmerton snipes one past Pekka Rinne to make it 2-0 and then it’s Stuart’s shot that deflects off Franzen to make it 3-1.

And how about that third Detroit goal? After the bounces went in Nashville’s favor in Game One, the Wings got them in Game Two. That’s something I was right about, that if you replayed Game One with the bounces going the other way, it’s a Detroit win.

The Wings made closer than they needed to. The second Nashville goal late in the third period didn’t need to happen, it was entirely because Detroit stopped trying to move the puck and started skating in circles. And I did call that Weber would get a third-period goal (though the full prediction was that it would be on a power play caused by a Tomas Holmstrom goalie interference call that negated a Detroit goal).

Much like Game One, the Red Wings played a very solid game. They started to slip in the final minutes but overall, they earned this one.

Jimmy Howard has been outstanding this series. He’s outplaying Rinne, which I’m not sure a lot of non-Wings partisans would have expected on Monday.

The win gives Detroit home ice in a five-game series. Huge for the team with the best home record in the NHL, but they can’t let up just because they’re coming home.