NHL: Chicago Blackhawks lose 2-3 against Detroit Red Wings
This Friday, Chicago Blackhawks were up against Detroit Red Wings at their home, Joe Louis Arena. This 27th game of the preseason was host to one of the toughest games in the NHL preseason. Both teams were playing their 2nd game and
it promised to be an exciting encounter.
Before the match, Detroit Red Wings’ head coach, Mike Babcock, said, “This is our home and fans expect a win from us. Let’s hope we meet their expectations.” Detroit initially looked to be the team with more confidence. They seemed to have the upper hand
as almost sixteen thousand strong home crowd cheered them on. As soon as the match started, this proved to be the case and the Red Wings came up with a flurry of goal attempts that provided them with a lot of opportunities.
One of these was converted into a goal in the third minute. With this the crowd went wild. The goal was scored by Jan Mursak from a sixteen feet wrist shot. Then, a steady flow of play was observed which saw the Chicago Blackhawks come up with some goal
opportunities of their own. A total of three quick shots were destined to make their way into the goal if it had not been the home team’s goalie in the way.
The Detroit Red Wings again took charge of the proceedings and started to put pressure on their opponents. Resultantly, they scored once again in the thirteenth minute through Tomas Holmstrom via 59 feet slap shot. This gave them a lead of 2-0. The period
ended with the Blackhawks managing just two more attempts on the goal. That too couldn’t make their way into the net.
Before the start of second period, Blackhawks’ head coach, Joel Quenneville said, “This was certainly what I expected from my team; now let’s see what we can do, as our first goal would be to score as soon as possible.”
This was certainly what the Chicago Blackhawks did later, taking the game to the Detroit Red Wings. They came up with as many as four shots in the early stages, while managing to pull one goal back in the fourth minute when they scored through Jeremy Morin.
The score became 2-1 but then suddenly the Red Wings were seen shifting gears, which resulted in the home team scoring almost immediately. They scored through Henrik Zetterberg from 16 feet.
Now, with the score being 3-1 in favor of Detroit Red Wings, the home team relaxed a little bit. Rest of the period was relatively less productive in terms of offensive attacks. At the end, both teams managed to score one goal each despite the fact that
it was by no means an attacking period.
By the end of the match, it was clear that both teams would look to score. The simple reason was that Chicago Blackhawks wanted to level while Detroit Red Wings wanted to further cement their chances of winning.
Red Wings started the half with frequent goal scoring attempts that might have made their way to the net if it hadn’t been for the away team’s defense. But the most exciting part of this period was when Chicago scored within the opening 40 seconds.
This happened from a 28 feet wrist off by Chicago’s center, Pirri. At the end of the period, the home team finished with a huge 17 attempts on goal out of which none were converted while on the other hand, Chicago Blackhawks ended with 11 shots out of which
they won once. The match ended with 3-2 in favor of Detroit Red Wings.
Later, Detroit Red Wings’ captain Nicklas Lidstrom said, “This win was really important for us considering the fact of the upcoming season and also because so many fans were backing us who without a doubt wanted a win.”
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