Nordiques routed by Wings

[The Deer]

Ah this was "one of those games".

Full marks to Rudy for playing really well and capitalizing on his opportunities. Full marks to him as well for his strategy of dumping the puck out when so many guys would skate it out and risk having it stolen.

Having said that, this was definitely one of those "closer than the score indicated" games. I'll say that when I'm on the other side of the fence too, but I'll say it now for myself. Detroit deserved to win for sure, but the five goal spread was more a function of the fact that (by Detroit's own admittance) pretty much all the breaks went their way. For some reason, Quebec players decided to randomly miss routine passes left and right this game, and most of the time it would result in a scoring chance the other way for Detroit. The game was also frustrating (for both players) because of the ridiculous amount of penalties that were called; there was hardly any five-on-five action at all during this game. Detroit got nailed in particular, I think there were two or three occasions when they were down five men to three, including one time where they had three penalties up on the clock at once. Yeah I know, I complained that Detroit got all the breaks and then I go and admit that I got way more powerplays, but I (along with many others) don't really find that the powerplay makes it any easier to score in this game.

The game was a very tight 1-1 affair until early in the second period when something stupid and out of my ass happened. For a guy with an 8-4 record I sure have given up a lot of "stupid" goals so far this season. Detroit dumped it the length of the ice, and I took my goalie out to play it. Idiotically, the crawling puck bounced off of my goalie and back into play. I couldn't corral it in time, and Detroit pounced on it and scored. This opened the floodgates, as Detroit scored two more quick ones after that and it was too large a hole for Quebec to crawl out of, especially with momentum being broken up by the fact that it seemed like every 30 seconds or so the ref was calling another penalty.

Detroit's defence and goaltending were superb, and its offense opportunistic. Rudy was clearly on a roll today, as he scored two big wins over another opponent just before this game. Quebec didn't feel like they played very badly (unlike their other three losses), "average" at worst, but still ended up with by far their worst result of the young season. That's how it goes sometimes though, I know there are some guys I've defeated by large scores who didn't actually play that badly in the game at all.

GG man and giver the rest of the way.

PS- I'd also like to note that in last season also saw my worst defeat come at the hands of the Detroit Red Wings. They were then owned by Slimeball, and he defeated me 9-3. I guess I'm glad Detroit isn't in my conference.