HFNHL Red Wings
Guest
Prior to this series Detroit and Colorado had never met in the playoffs and given they old meet a couple of times a year in the regular season there was no established rivalry or even bad blood that GM Niece was aware of. Apparently the Av’s don’t know that.
Each game in this series has been bitterly contested with lots of hitting and even more penalties. The Wings were one of the least penalized teams in the regular season and even in the first round the Wings only found themselves shorthanded just over three times per game on average against the Ducks in the first round. Four games into this series and the Wings are finding themselves shorthanded nearly 5 times per game as they’ve been goated into reacting to some questionable hits by the Avalanche.
In the past two games those questionable hits and numerous hooking violations have inevitably resulted in numerous injuries to Detroit. In game three Mike Knuble had beaten Mike Komisarek to the outside and was about to break away when Komisarek hooked Knuble from behind sending him tumbling awkwardly into the boards and injuring his elbow.
Game four was even nastier as Travis Green took an elbow to the head from Nick Boyton and lay prone on the ice for several minutes before being taken to hospital for a possible concussion. No penalty was called on the play.
Minutes later Phillip Boucher hit Jozef Stumpel from behind in the corner. Boucher had clearly left his feet in making the hit and was ejected from the game. The travesty is is that Stumpel will now miss 1-2 weeks while the league did not suspend Boucher on this hit that was clearly intended to injure.
The Avalanche defence corps has been playing a dirty game all series and Wings management has spoken to league officiating about it in hopes of stoppng this before someones career is ended.
In four games Colorado’s blueline alone has been called for 14 penalties including 4 double minors, 2 majors, and a game misconduct.
The Wings will now limp into the Pepsi centre for game 5 with Stumpel out and Shanahan, Knuble, and Green all badly banged up.
Each game in this series has been bitterly contested with lots of hitting and even more penalties. The Wings were one of the least penalized teams in the regular season and even in the first round the Wings only found themselves shorthanded just over three times per game on average against the Ducks in the first round. Four games into this series and the Wings are finding themselves shorthanded nearly 5 times per game as they’ve been goated into reacting to some questionable hits by the Avalanche.
In the past two games those questionable hits and numerous hooking violations have inevitably resulted in numerous injuries to Detroit. In game three Mike Knuble had beaten Mike Komisarek to the outside and was about to break away when Komisarek hooked Knuble from behind sending him tumbling awkwardly into the boards and injuring his elbow.
Game four was even nastier as Travis Green took an elbow to the head from Nick Boyton and lay prone on the ice for several minutes before being taken to hospital for a possible concussion. No penalty was called on the play.
Minutes later Phillip Boucher hit Jozef Stumpel from behind in the corner. Boucher had clearly left his feet in making the hit and was ejected from the game. The travesty is is that Stumpel will now miss 1-2 weeks while the league did not suspend Boucher on this hit that was clearly intended to injure.
The Avalanche defence corps has been playing a dirty game all series and Wings management has spoken to league officiating about it in hopes of stoppng this before someones career is ended.
In four games Colorado’s blueline alone has been called for 14 penalties including 4 double minors, 2 majors, and a game misconduct.
The Wings will now limp into the Pepsi centre for game 5 with Stumpel out and Shanahan, Knuble, and Green all badly banged up.
