Wings 4, Blues 3 (SO): Post Game Snipes...

• When the Wings finally scored during the second period, I actually yelled “Hallelujah” in my family room. I never thought I’d be that excited about a goal in the regular season.
• The third and fourth lines looked fantastic early in the game. During the first period, they were better than the top two lines by far. I figured it was going to be a long night upon seeing that.
• When the Wings finally scored, it had been 175 minutes since their last goal. That’s almost three whole games. Three.
• Tonight was also the first time in a week that the Wings had scored more than one goal. Getting into the plural was a nice change.
• The first period wasn’t particularly good. Jimmy Howard had to work much too hard. The team woke up for the second half of the game and I actually felt like they were controlling play at times. It was a welcome change.
• It was nice to see the Wings pick up a win in the shootout. Really nice.
• That first goal was a thing of beauty. Datsyuk absolutely threaded a pass to Z who got it to Homer for a perfect tip-in. The boys looked downright relieved to see the puck in the net.
  
• The last-minute goal was fluky to the max, but sometimes you just need those kind of bounces to go your way. FSN awarded the goal to Pav at first, but it was announced at the arena as being Zetterberg's. At that point, I could not have cared less who they credited. All that mattered was that the puck was in the back of the net.
• Is it sad that every time the Wings scored, I was looking at the referee to make sure he wasn't waving the goal off?
• Justin Abdelkader played ridiculously well. He didn't have much to show for it on the stat sheet, but this has to have been his best game of the season.
  

GP Answers:
1. They managed 3 goals tonight, including an “ugly” one to tie the game up with less than a minute left in the third. It was good to see the Wings’ stars score and to see them grind out some goals. Now they just need to maintain it.
2. See above. Mason played well, but the Wings managed to do what they needed to win.
3. This one was a bit sarcastic, but I can’t complain about the officiating tonight. Sure I would’ve liked to have seen the Wings get a few more powerplays, but they were consistent and that’s more than we get on most nights.
4. The first period was a little rough, but I’d say they had a pretty good showing overall. @Mserven said it best on Twitter: “nice to see the Wings playing like they want to win rather than like they should win.”
5. Three goals in fact. Plus a couple in the shootout.

Cookies and Cupcakes for Jimmy Howard
He had entirely too much work to do throughout the game, and made some spectacular saves. I can’t fault him on any of the goals he let in. The second one in particular was an absolutely ridiculous shot. My mom pointed out earlier that I was a little harsh about him at the start of the season, and I’m happy to say that he’s been a pleasant surprise. (She would also like me to state that she liked him the first time she saw him play when we made a family trip to the Joe four years ago.)

An Extra Stick Tap for Todd Bertuzzi
When I saw that he was going in the shootout, I yelled, “Oh Jesus, Bertuzzi?!” While he was taking his long, winding approach, I promised him that I would lay off and give him a free pass for a week if he buried it. He did, and I’ll keep my word. There’ll be nothing negative about Bert on this humble blog until next Saturday. With any luck this’ll give him some confidence and he’ll start producing.

Darren Helm gets the Golden Facepalm
I hate to do this because he actually didn’t play badly, but oh man did he ever miss some glorious opportunities. He’ll probably be having nightmares about those two chances he didn’t bury with a few minutes left in the third. The Wings came back to tie it up, so all is well, but I was pounding my head on my keyboard there for a minute.

What I learned:
That seeing the Wings score a goal feels ridiculously good.