There's a lot of blame to go around in Detroit right now. Sure, most people (outside of Detroit) thought that Nashville would beat the Wings in this series. Nashville is younger, deeper, has an elite defensive pairing (Weber/Suter), and one of the top two or three goalies in the game in Rinne. But there is no reason for the Wings to have lost both games at home when they have been dominant at home all year long.
People want to blame Howard. Yeah, he over committed on the Predators' second goal. But Lidstrom, White, and Hudler all followed the same guy into the corner leaving more open ice than I've ever seen. Meanwhile, Filppula should have been covering Klein, who ended up scoring and just stopped covering him in the neutral zone. That was just a terrible play by the entire team. And yes, Howard should've stopped the goal that didn't count and could have made a great save on the Preds' first goal. But Howard isn't the problem. Howard isn't an elite goalie, he's a good goalie. He makes 2.25 per year currently. He shouldn't be expected to outplay Rinne - he's not that talented. He should be expected to keep Detroit in the game and give them a chance to win on every night. And he's been doing that.
Detroit had a lot of shots last night, but in my opinion there weren't a lot of quality chances there. Rinne may have made a couple saves that made me say wow, but that was it. If the Wings want to beat an elite goaltender like Rinne they have to generate more rebounds, more screen shots, and more high quality side-to-side chances that are difficult for the best of the best (which Rinne is) to stop. Right now, most of Detroit's chances have been coming from the perimeter as Nashville has done an excellent job of plugging up the middle of the ice and the front of the net.
This is where players need to drive the net. Franzen and Bertuzzi are both big enough that they should always be doing this. Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Filppula, Hudler, Cleary, Nyquist and the rest need to do the same. Believe it or not Nashville isn't an overly big team. They aren't an overly physical team. They aren't beating the Wings up whatsoever; they're just playing hard, defensive hockey.
The Wings have enough in their arsenal to beat Nashville, but they just aren't doing what it takes. Franzen especially has been disappointing to me as he got a monster contract because he's big and supposedly clutch in the playoffs. He needs to use his size to drive the net and take over a game instead of just being angry. Turn that anger into good hockey.
If I were Babcock I'd change up the lines to look something like this:
Nyquist - Datsyuk - Bertuzzi
Filppula - Zetterberg - Cleary
Abdelkader - Franzen - Hudler
Miller - Emmerton - Holmstrom
That gives the Wings three lines that should be able to score. Being able to role three scoring lines will wear on Nashville's defense who have a lot of inexperience after Weber/Suter, especially since they're currently missing Hal Gill.
Changes may need to be made to this team this summer - and are likely coming - but there's no reason this current group should go out in five games to a foe who is deeper but more or less is equal.
The Wings have two days of rest, which should give them enough time to figure out what they need to do to win. We'll see.
P.S. Babcock is a great coach, but he needs to play Nyquist more. He's our only young skilled guy and he's looked dangerous at times recently with limited minutes.
