The Detroit Red Wings will be sitting out of the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in two years due to their loss to the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night. They do have some hope for the future with the solid play of Jimmy Howard in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Our Red Wings site, Winging It In Motown, feels that Howard was the reason that the Red Wings were apart of Game Five at all:
Detroit’s Jimmy Howard Kept Red Wings In Game Five As Best He Could
It was a game that featured all sorts of oddities: eight different Red Wings taking faceoffs as the linesmen were tossing players from the faceoff circle; a penalty shot to San Jose on a questionable hooking call that would rarely get called in almost any other situation, Marc-Edouard Vlasic going knee-on-knee with Valtteri Filppula in a moment that drew gasps for both players; and finally, a violent Douglas Murray elbow-to-head shot on Johan Franzen that drew no penalty just before the game winning goal.
If anything, the sole reason the Red Wings were even close in this game was the spectacular performance by Jimmy Howard. San Jose had plenty of chances, but it was Howard making 30 saves on a night where the offense couldn’t seem to get much going.
The Red Wings will start evaluating their season and have to make some changes in the offseason with decisions by Nicklas Lidstrom on whether he will play and whether the organization will keep Todd Bertuzzi. The one thing the Red Wings won’t have to worry about who will be between the pipes next season.
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