Game three between the Detroit Red Wings and the Anaheim Ducks took place Saturday night at the Joe Louis Area in Detroit, both team were looking to take a two games to one lead in the best of seven first round series. At the end of the game it was the Ducks that had the led and the Red Wings and their fans who were fuming. The Ducks had a 4-0 victory and one the Wings top three forwards had been kicked out of the game and would be facing suspension for a hit in the second period.
The first period was scoreless but featured four Anaheim penalties as well as three by Detroit, with neither team being able to cash in on the powerplay. The Ducks outshot the Wings 13-7 in the period. The second period was the period that turned the game in favor of the Ducks. The game remained scoreless until the 15:11 mark when Justin Abdelkader crushed Toni Lydman coming out of the corner to the left of Jonas Hiller. Abdelkader was called for a five minute major for charging and was also giving a game misconduct, sending him to the showers early. The replay that I saw showed that Abdelkader stopped striding before the hit, one of the criteria for charging, it also showed that Abdelkader hit Lydman shoulder to shoulder before sliding up to make contact with the head. As with any big hit in today's NHL this one will be looked at by League Disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan who could decide to suspend Abdelkader or not, that will be revealed Sunday. The result of the play was a five minutes powerplay for the Ducks, who would remain on the powerplay no matter how many goals they scored. It didn't take the Ducks long to cash in with Nick Bonino scoring assisted by Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf 18 seconds after the penalty call. The Wings were able to settle down and kill of the remaining 4:42 of the penalty which ran into the third period. That third period was the killer for Detroit with the Ducks scoring three more goals. The first was a shorthanded unassisted goal scored by Ryan Getzlaf 6:33, into the period, the second goal scored by Emerson Etem assisted by Teemu Selanne coming at 8:04 just 2:10 after the Getzlaf goal and a powerplay goal scored by Matt Beleskey assisted by Saku Koivu and Bobby Ryan at 13:34. The Ducks outshout the Wings for the game 29-23 and were 2-6 on the powerplay while Detroit was 0-6 with the man advantage.
I just found out that Justin Abdelkader will be suspended for two games after the hit on Toni Lydman in the second period of Saturday night's game. In a video released by Brendan Shanahan regarding the incident he stated "Abdelkader elevates at contact, turning what could have been a hard, full body check into a high, violent check with significant contact to the head that caused an injury,". Abdelkader will miss game four Monday night in Detroit as well as game five in Anaheim. I believe this could be a case of Shanahan handing down a punishment that was more sever then normal because he didn't want the Ducks and their fans to scream "bias" because Shanahan was a long time Red Wing player, winning three Stanley Cups with Detroit. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on the Wings both for the perspective of who will take Abdelkader's place in the lineup and what will it mean to the rest of the team. Will they just fold and lose the next two game or will they turn this into a rallying point and fight back to make this a series?
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