The Fifth Liners

Boston have been playing well of late, quietly getting on with job. The result of which is a spot at the top of the Eastern Conference. Detroit's troubles this season have been well documented and last night the team had to go without superstar Pavel Datsyuk and dependable first-liner Todd Bertuzzi. On paper, this looked like another win for Boston. The first ten minutes were close, the Bruins looked dangerous when pushing and the Red Wings broke well, recently returned Darren Helm almost opened the scoring with a lightning fast breakaway, only to put the puck wide. Detroit's Johan Franzen then stepped up. The Mule set up the first and only goal of a penalty packed first period when his cross through the blue paint found Justin Abdelkader who tapped in the opener. This came straight after he stepped out of the penalty box after picking up a penalty for high-sticking on Zdeno Mt. Chara. Must have been a really high stick. The second period brought more goals for boys in ...

At the start of the fifth game of the season, the Detroit Red Wings were 2/4 and hadn't scored a single powerplay goal. Sure they'd done pretty well on the penalty kill, fending off some serious five on three attacks, but after ten attempts, had not been able to take man advantage and grab some goals. That changed last night when the Red Wings welcomed the Struggling Philadelphia Flyers to the Joe Louis Arena.  Detroit didn't take long to open the scoring when Todd Bertuzzi , promoted to the first line, scored a great wrap-around after Michael Raffl went to the box for hooking. Raffl had been called up to deal with the Flyers' injury woes. The second period brought more goals and more penalties. Luke Schenn 's trip to the box allowed Niklas Kronwall the chance to remind us he's not just there to flatten the opposition. The big Swede opened his scoring account for the season.  Erik Gustafsson immediately decided to emulate his fellow countryman ...