Did Conklin Just Dominate the Blackhawks?? Yes he did.
Heading into the game, most Wings fans were pinning this as a blowout as a certain Ty Conklin was going to be the starting goalie. Conklin, who up until tonight hadn’t won a single game since the second game of the season led the Wings to the victory by making some key saves and stopping a penalty shot.
However, the game didn’t start in the fashion that the Wings wanted. Dave Bolland gave the Blackhawks the lead after a mere 3 minutes of the first quarter. He took a shot that ricocheted off of Lidstroms skate and rolled under Conklin. Although it wasn’t an easy shot to save, Conklin certainly could have gotten the puck and this was probably his only major mistake of the night. Patrick Sharp would then extend the Blackhawks lead on a power-play goal just a minute later. With all of the Wings players bunched around one side of the net, Sharp had an easy and clear shot lane and took advantage of the opportunity to give the Blackhawks the 2-0 lead. This goal wasn’t at all on Conklin as he had no help whatsoever from his teammates.
Good Job Conklin!
Although the Wings were down by two, they weren’t playing too bad. It just seemed that Chicago was more fired up from the beginning however, that didn’t prevent the Wings from making a comeback. Valterri Filpulla would start this comeback with a goal after 15 minutes of play in the 1st quarter. The second period would remain scoreless with both teams sharing opportunity’s.
After 7 minutes of play in the third quarter a shot skidded passed Ty Conklin and onto the goaline before Tomas Holmstrom would cover the puck up and prevent it from going into the net. By doing this he did save a goal from occurring however, he did give the Blackhakws the opportunity to give themselves a 2-goal lead on a penalty shot. Rookie Jimmy Hayes made a fairly weak penalty shot attempt that was easily covered up by Conklin.
It seemed that this energized the Wings and a couple of minutes later they managed to tie the game up after Daniel Cleary pokes a loose puck through the legs of Cory Crawford make the score 2-2. Both teams would have some small opportunity’s to then take or retake the lead however in the end the game the score was 2-2 and an overtime was needed to determine the winner.
3 minutes into Pavel Datsyuk would shoot the puck into a wide open Chicago net and give the Wings the win, 3-2.
This game also had some big division implications as we now are exactly half way through the season, Detroit, St. Louis, and Chicago all have 53 points to have a tied lead in the Central Division, and the Nashville Predators are only a few points behind.
The Wings played really well in this and so did Ty Conklin. He has definitely earned himself another game as the Wings backup although I still want us to see if we can get a guy like Nabakov.
Next up for the Wings is the Islanders on Tuesday.
