Ducks vs. Red Wings – Game 4

It takes several minutes for our shrieks of laughter to subside after the VS montage intro narrated by Doc; the final shot of a grimacing Getzlaf looking like he’s weeping blood was just too rich. He could not have looked more operatically sissy-riffic.

Doc and Eddie lead us into the game, predictably, with a discussion of the Pronger suspension situation, and Doc cheerfully provides the coda we were all hoping to hear: Baby Nieder’s game misconduct was rescinded by the league. Thank God! We wouldn’t want that mark on the Baby Niedermayer escutcheon. (Oh, and IPB’s official stance on the Pronger suspension is that we can’t believe it took him this long to cost his team so dearly.) Meanwhile, on the sideline reporter front, Chris is wearing the pelt of a different ugly couch than the silver leather one from a few days ago. It’s hard to see it, though, through Todd Marchant’s truly awe-inspiring mustache.

We want Doug Weight added permanently to VS studio show, perhaps in place of… well, we can’t pick just one. He’ll just have to replace Engblom and Jones. It’s going to be hard for tonight’s broadcast to top this exchange between Bill Clement and Dougie for sheer delightfulness:

Clement: “How keen is Detroit’s killer instinct?”
Dougie, exuberantly: “Oh, it’s keen.”

FIRST PERIOD

We can’t leave it unsaid a moment longer: every time Doc reads that Luggage Express promotion, we think the phone number is 1-800-SHIT-BAGS. Sorry.

18:23 WOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Just as we’re beginning to think the promised “strong start” by the Ducks is going to include a lot of watching the Wings hog the puck, Perry pounces on a wayward Bertuzzi pass just inside the zone and rips a shot past Hasek. Pookie: “How keen is my desire to see the Red Wings lose? Oh, it’s keen.”

17:16 Doc gives us a litany of Ducks who have been goal-less for ages, including the entire Kid Line (or whatever they’re called), Nieder and Beauchemin. That can’t be good for the Ducks.

16:31 The strong start is dead. Giggy is not the puck handler he thinks he is, and turns the puck over to Chelios with a weak attempt at sending it hard around the boards from behind his net, and Chelios finds Cleary for an easy tip-in in front.

15:51 We have been specifically requested by a Friend Of IPB to not hold back in our criticism of Teemu. We’d comply, but we have to notice him on the ice first. On this shift he seems to be employing our patented approach to team sports from our gym class days — playing offense when his team is on defense, and defense when they’re on offense.

12:36 By our unofficial count, the Wings are outshooting the Ducks right now 35,000-2. The actual shot count, per Doc, is 6-4. Doc is wrong.

Coming back from commercial Chris is interviewing Brian Burke. This interview would be much better if she’d led with the question, “Brian, why are you so crazy?”

11:33 We might be going out on a limb suggesting that this is probably not the way the Ducks were hoping this game would be going at this point. Every time the Wings get the puck they gain the zone with alacrity and retain possession until Giguere is forced to freeze the puck on a great scoring chance.

10:44 Hey look! It’s Teemu. He skates at full speed down the wing, then pulls up as he approaches the puck deep in the corner to Hasek’s left and lets the Wing defender control and ultimately skate out of the zone. Nice!

10:19 The Wings, those stinking cheaters, get called for too many men. It was a ridiculously unnecessary penalty for them to take, because they already look like they’re skating with one more guy than the Ducks.

8:14 WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Hot damn! A Teemu sighting that leads to a goal! He feeds a gorgeous pass to Getzlaf skating up the middle (wise move — that way the puck can be cleansed of the Teemu craptitude before moving on in the play), Getzi dangles a sweet little toe drag around the defenseman and drops a pass back, and Ric Jackman finishes. (Strangely, the goal announcement is accompanied by what sounds like the lame panther roar they play in Florida. Uhhh… what’s up with that?)

6:05 Datsyuk trips Moen after a loose puck plunks down right at the Duck’s feet in front of the crease, with Hasek sprawled helplessly in the goal mouth.

5:28 Teemu wants us to notice him — with tons of time and after lengthy deliberation, he opts to pass from the corner back to a gapingly vacated point.

4:42 Zetterberg and Filppula combine on a 2-on-1 shorthanded that Giggy seems just barely able to stop. Now this looks more like the special teams we’ve come to expect from this series.

3:06 Doc tells us all about the uniform change for the Ducks. He starts by telling us the players used to be embarrassed by the “cartoon characters” on the old unis, then explains the black and gold colors were chosen because they’re Army’s colors, and then adds something about Camp Pendleton factoring into the change. Then he adds that the orange highlights were included in honor of Orange County. Boomer says carefully, “I hate to be the one to say this to Doc, but Camp Pendleton is a Marine base.” We are too distracted by that orange factoid to care about military bases — we thought the orange was meant to symbolize duck beaks and feet. Huh. Who knew?

1:29 WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Feeling the sting of the awesome power of IPB’s criticism, Teemu spectacularly drives home a bouncing puck. This goal is a thing of beauty, because it’s the kind of goal we’ve come to expect from the Detroits and Ottawas in this playoff year. The Perry/Penner/Getzlaf line started things with a hard-charging shift that concluded with a great scoring chance, and Teemu’s line just built on that pressure.

1:24 A glimpse of Wild Wing in the crowd prompts Pookie to wonder aloud, “If they were embarrassed by their cartoon uniforms, are they not embarrassed by their mascot?” Hey, who isn’t embarrassed by their mascot?

0:00 The period ends 3-1 in Anaheim’s favor, thanks in large part to Giggy making 37,000 saves and Hasek sucking ass. Okay, yeah, the Ducks also figured out about halfway through how to move their feet, concurrently with the Wings forgetting how to move theirs.

FIRST INTERMISSION

Heaven forbid the VS crew deviate from their predetermined script — Clement very awkwardly shoehorns a segment of Dougie praising Pahlsson into a discussion of how this game is going. We, uh, failed to note how Pahlsson was the key guy in that first period.

SECOND PERIOD

Kyle Quincey is mic’d up tonight — he rather hilariously seems to ask Chelios on the bench about how a play had unfolded, and Chelios just screws his face up like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about but probably should, so I’m just going to keep making this face until you stop asking.”

19:11 Nieder is forced by a forechecking Wing to cough the puck up to Samuelsson in the defensive zone, and takes a tripping penalty while hauling Samuelsson down.

17:57 Ahhh… the O’Donnell Special: taking a really stupid hooking penalty in front of the net while his team is already shorthanded. We suspect his phone number is 1-800-SHIT-BAG.

17:31 Giggy makes a phenomenally good save on Zetterberg after some crisp puck movement by the Wings.

16:18 Pahlsson supports our burgeoning belief that he’s the Pando of the West with some really dynamic penalty killing at the point; he first seems to overcommit to a possible point-to-point pass, but recovers and blocks a shot attempt, corrals the puck, and eats up much of the remainder of the penalty.

14:02 McDonald just barely controls a wildly bouncing puck through a pair of Wings D-men, but can’t quite pull the trigger for a good shot.

13:46 Perhaps happy with how much momentum they gained by that great penalty kill earlier, the Ducks decide to try to build some more and a put the Wings back on the power play. Marchant for tripping.

12:13 The Ducks plan for momentum-building on the PK was seriously flawed. Bertuzzi, standing directly on top of Giggy in the crease, taps a goal home off a quick little pass from Lang behind the net.

11:24 Still discussing how Bertuzzi was able to stand at the front of the net on that goal, Eddie comments that the D-corps dressed for Anaheim tonight is too small to handle a guy Bertuzzi’s size. He says that’s where the Ducks are really missing Pronger. Schnookie: “Yeah, with Pronger out of the lineup, guys like Marchant are forced to take the stupid penalties.”

11:10 Anaheim skates out of a scrum in front of their bench with a power play — Baby Nieder gets a single minor for roughing and Cleary a double-minor.

10:04 A well conceived pass by Penner across the crease is all for naught because Perry isn’t quite ready for it when it reaches him all alone in front of Hasek. He was probably too busy squeaking mild threats at the penalty killer to notice it.

9:06 Getzi swoops in from nowhere and forces a turnover by the Wings in the heart of their defensive zone, but Datsyuk bests him before he can even get a shot. Pookie grouses, “It wasn’t a good play by Datsyuk, it was crappy support by Teemu.”

7:59 Oh no… we thought we’d seen the last of him! Why do we have to suffer through an Yzerman interview coming back from intermission? And why is he dressed like a Reservoir Dog?

6:28 Chelios kind of falls on an incoming shot from the point but misses the puck, and all of a sudden Hasek is pokechecking it back out at the collapsed Chelios, looking like he’s trying to hit the old man with both the puck and his stick. As the play goes back up the ice Doc is talking about something and Pookie suddenly says, “All I heard Doc say there was, ‘Selanne is on the ice’… ‘and that means nothing bad can happen for Detroit’.”

4:39 Baby Nieder gets called for hooking just because Lebda fell over near him. The reaction shots of both players show shocked disbelief on Baby Nieder’s part and Lebda looking like he is hocking up a hairball trying to get his mouthguard out. We wonder if the NHL will review this penalty, too, and erase it retroactively from Baby Nieder’s permanent record.

4:24 There is no justice in this world. On a complete bullshit penalty, Cleary gets about 15 whacks at a loose puck in the crease and finally bangs it home. (The puck ended up loose in the crease behind a fallen Giggy because it was bounced off Getzi’s caboose in front.)

3:57 The officials very lamely try to make things right by calling Samuelsson for interference. The whistle when the Wings touch the puck sounds hilariously meek.

3:03 Giggy makes a monster glove save on a Filppula breakaway. (The replay shows some marvelously cool-headed puck control by a full-speed-ahead Filppula after an over-aggressive Nieder got a stick on the puck.)

2:35 All vestigial traces of the Ducks’ momentum are long gone. This power play is catastrophically awful.

1:45 For the second time in less than 90 seconds Giggy is forced to make a huge save to cover for Nieder’s ill-advised pinching; this time it’s on Cleary on a 2-on-1 with Samuelsson.

0:22 Perry gets called for a staggeringly stupid interference penalty — skating past Zetterberg in the neutral zone, he shoves the Wing over with a two-handed push right in front of the official. He is now the front-runner for the coveted “Duck Whose Horrendously-Timed Lazy Penalty Most Resembles The Type Sean O’Donnell Would Take” award.

0:00 Once again, the Ducks are outshot 5 billion to 3, but this time Giggy isn’t able to hold off the majority of the attack. The period ends tied 3-3.

SECOND INTERMISSION

We are devastated that tonight’s Quest For The Cup codeword isn’t “Crunchy” or “Staffy”. In protest we shall work doubly hard to have no fucking clue what the “Quest For The Cup” is. (Because seriously, what is it?)

THIRD PERIOD

We get a double mic’d up this period: Beauchemin, who sounds like he has a mouthful of marbles, and Quincey, who rather adorably is shown jumping up on the bench to cheer a goal, then tempers his response to double-check the jumbotron to make sure a goal was actually scored. When his suspicions are confirmed he jumps up and down cheering happily.

19:58 Wow. Baby Nieder, immediately off the faceoff, steals Perry’s O’Donnell award by getting called for cross-checking. It looks to us like that one could have gone either way; we won’t say it wasn’t a penalty, but wouldn’t complain if hadn’t been called.

19:01 As fans bang on the glass in the corner, Pookie suggests the audience side of the boards be electrified, so fans who bang on them like idiots would get electrocuted.

18:07 As the first penalty is killed off, the Ducks scramble to make stymie some great chances for the Wings.

17:58 The crowd is in full, appreciative roar as the second penalty is killed. His teammates may have killed it, but Baby Nieder retains the O’Donnell Award for that penalty.

15:37 Cleary just can’t resist tripping Huskins as he tries to skate out of the zone with the puck and is called for it. We debate whether the Ducks will be able to even get a shot off on the PP and decide they won’t.

14:51 Huh. They showed us. Of course, it was a pretty weak shot from the point that Hasek sees the whole way in.

14:36 Well, they showed us again. Of course, this time it was a great shot from Getzi at the point, through a thicket of players so Hasek never sees it. WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! (Instead of a duck roar sound effect, this time there are sirens blaring over the loudspeakers so it sounds like the police are staging a raid at the Honda Center.)

13:24 Penner very deftly strips some random Wing (yes, we have TiVo, and no we’re not going to deploy it to see who that was) forward at the point. We like those kinds of takeaways — it always looks so simple.

12:37 Zetterberg has no manner of luck: a great shot just barely trickles wide after Giggy gets a piece of it.

10:58 Teemu tries to turn the puck over coming out from behind Hasek’s net and can’t even suck correctly, as the puck bounces off a defenseman and deflects onto Hasek.

9:20 After Giggy shuts down a Zetterberg shot to get a godsend of a whistle, we decide this game can be described as “nutty”. The Ducks have taken the lead in this period, and seem capable, theoretically, of scoring whenever they get the puck (unlike a certain Eastern Conference Finalist we can think of), but they also seem incapable of actually ever getting as far as attaining puck possession. Meanwhile the Wings are simply skating in a higher gear than the Ducks. Basically it comes down to the Wings are skating the pants off the Ducks, but Giggy is playing the pants off of Hasek.

5:07 Getzi gets what seems like his 600th shot of this period. The “PPG Line” (or whatever they’re called) has raised their game something huge in this period. None of their teammates are building off it, but every time they hit the ice they make all kinds of things happen in the Detroit zone.

3:42 No sooner are the Penner/Perry/Getzlafs off the ice than the Wings regain their territorial advantage thanks to lackadaisical defensive turnovers.

1:36 Getzi and Perry get a clear-cut 2-on-1 from center ice, but ultimately have to settle for a weak backhand shot off the side of the side of the net by Getzi.

1:08 Baby Nieder says “Take your O’Donnell Award and stuff it!” WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! He puts the game away with an empty netter. Some disgruntled Wings fan decides they don’t want to go home with their octopus and throws it to the ice. We are normally underwhelmed by the octopus thing, but that one was really cutely festooned with a shiny scrap of red ribbon. (We are disappointed with the ice crew’s lack of flair carrying the octopus off the ice. Schnookie wishes the guy carrying the octopus would tauntingly swing it over his head like the dude in Detroit does, but Pookie wishes he would be like the Wrigley Field crowd and toss the octopus back.)

0:17 Pahlsson and Zetterberg put the “incidental” in “coincidental minors for roughing”. The Wings actually call a freaking timeout here, with 17 seconds left and down by two goals. The delay gives another Wings fan time to unload their octopus, this time sadly unadorned.

0:00 Well, that was a surprise! Despite getting the better of the play for most of this game, the Wings skate off with the loss. And the best part of the Ducks evening up the series is that they did it without Pronger. They are, frankly, far, far more likable when skating without him.