Can you play a perfect hockey game? That’s pretty tough to say and, probably, even tougher to imagine.
Hockey is so much different than most sports with its speed, its puck movement, the ebb and flow of each line change. Goaltending, power plays, bad passes, dumb passes, great passes, giveaways, takeaways, missed assignments, blocked shots, all the things that can make or break a team — or even both teams — tend to make hockey the most imperfect game.
Ever sat around watching a hockey game and counted the “completed” passes? If you have and you ever got past three, it was probably on a power-play.
That’s why, what happened on Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena, was really something to watch. The Detroit Red Wings probably got as close to perfect as a team can get.
They outshot the Penguins 36-19. Outhit them 31-25. Outscored them 4-0. In a nutshell, the Red Wings completely dominated Game 1 of the 2008 Stanley Cup final.
Kris Draper was in Sidney Crosby’s face all night and while Crosby often escaped and played brilliantly, he got only three shots at Chris Osgood and was never a real threat to score.
Meanwhile, Evgeni Malkin was AWOL. Marian Hossa had four shots on net and two misses (almost all of those chances were set up by Crosby), while Hal Gill, a guy that four of our local media geniuses — on TV, no less — said was playing “really well,” (puh-leese) was on the ice for three of Detroit’s four goals and finished at minus-2.
Offensively for Detroit, two goals by Mikael Samuelsson, pretty much put this one away, but sensational goals by Daniel Cleary and Henrik Zetterberg, in the dying moments, put an exclamation point on the opener.
Detroit was better in all aspects of the game. If it’s possible to play a perfect hockey game, the Red Wings played a perfect hockey game on Saturday night.
Game 2 goes Monday. Maybe it’ll be Pittsburgh’s turn.