MVN - Most Valuable Network

Best Team in the League Comes to Boston

Boston, MA- The National Hockey League’s schedule makers certainly weren’t doing the Boston Bruins any favors when they lined things up for this week. Luckily for Boston, they were able to put together a strong effort and come away with a 4-1 win Thursday night against the Eastern Conference leading Ottawa Senators. Saturday night, they switch from playing the Beast of the East to the Best of the West as the Detroit Red Wings come to Boston. The Red Wings are far and away the best team in the NHL this season with a record of 39-10-4, good for 82 points. Their closest competitor is Ottawa with 68 points. Detroit will be playing their second game in two nights as they defeated the Colorado Avalanche 2-0 on Friday. This is the second meeting between the Bruins and Red Wings since the lockout. Last year, the Bruins lit up Dominik Hasek for six goals in a 6-3 win at Joe Louis Arena.

With a 39-10-4 record, you can pretty much assume that the Red Wings are very strong in just about every area. Detroit has scored 179 goals on the season, one behind first place Ottawa. The Red Wings’ 112 goals allowed are the best in the league. When it comes to offense, Detroit is dynamic. The Red Wings have six players with ten or more goals, and have another four players right on the door step.

Henrik Zetterberg is at the top of the charts with 30 of those goals as well as 33 assists for 63 points. Zetterberg is tied for the team lead in points with assists leader Pavel Datsyuk. Datsyuk has dished out 46 helpers to go with his 17 goals. He also has the best plus/minus among the forwards at plus-35. A bit further down the list, you’ll bump into Tomas Holmstrom. Holmstrom will never win an award for the prettiest goal, but he will certainly get his fair share of tallies. He is actually second on the team with 20 goals on the season. His 35 points place him sixth. Just above Holmstrom is Daniel Cleary. Cleary is another hard worker that gets rewarded for his efforts. He is fifth on the Red Wings with 19 goals and 18 assists for 37 points. Detroit’s other two ten-goal scorers are Valtteri Filppula with 15 goals and 26 points, as well as Jiri Hudler, who has 11 goals and 32 points.

You’ll notice there were a few players in the top five left out of the above paragraph. That is because Detroit has two of the top defensemen in the NHL in Nicklas Lidstrom and Bryan Rafalski. Lidstrom already has a closet full of Norris Trophies, and it looks like he just might be on his way to another one. In 53 games, Lidstrom has already eclipsed the 50-point plateau. With one assist on Friday against the Avalanche, the veteran defenseman has 44 helpers and an even 50 points. His plus/minus is well on its’ way up the charts as well at an astonishing plus-44. Bobby Orr holds the record for best plus/minus in a season with a plus-124 in 1970-71. Enough about Lidstrom. Rafalski is second among Detroit defensemen with nine goals and 35 assists for 44 points. Seven of Rafalski’s nine goals have come on the power play. Second year player Niklas Kronwall comes in third with five goals and 20 assists for 25 points. Then comes a big drop off down to Brett Lebda, Andreas Lilja, and Chris Chelios. Those three have a combined total of 29 points.

Between the pipes, the Red Wings have one of the oldest goaltending tandems you will see. However, it is also one of the best tandems in the NHL. Dominik Hasek and Chris Osgood are the last lines of defense for Detroit, and they have each done a remarkable job. With Friday night’s shutout over the Avalanche, Hasek has now started 28 games. He has put together an 18-7-2 record with a 2.04 goals against average and .905 save percentage. Friday night was Hasek’s fourth shutout of the season. Despite playing in one less game, Osgood’s numbers are even better. Osgood has compiled an amazing record of 21-3-2. He also has a goals against average of 1.88, and a save percentage of .926. Osgood has three shutouts to his credit. By those numbers, it comes as no surprise that he started the All-Star Game last weekend. Since Hasek got the nod on Friday, one would think that Osgood would go on Saturday in Boston.

The Original Six matchup between the Boston Bruins and Detroit Red Wings will take place at 7:00 from the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston. After a week off, the Providence Bruins get back in action on Saturday night. They will travel to Portland for a divisional matchup with the Pirates. The P-Bruins got a boost to their lineup on Friday, as Pascal Pelletier was sent down from the big club. The puck drops at 7:00 for that game as well.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 10:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.