Game Live Blog, Red Wings at Coyotes

Pregame: Danny Cleary’s in for sure, as the beat reporters have tweeted that the Cleary-Helm-Miller line is starting the game. Brad Stuart is out, so Mike Commodore steps in. Ericsson has been promoted to the second pairing with Nik Kronwall, so Commie will pair with Jakub Kindl. Joey MacDonald starting, as expected.

1st period:

15:02 Hooking penalty to Ian White.

14:24 Hooking penalty to Martin Hanzal. 4 on 4 for a while.

12:38 Goal for Boyd Gordon. White and Kronwall collide and Gordon comes up with the puck, dekes around MacDonald on the breakaway.

3:52 Shots 6-6 at this point. The Wings have really done a pretty good job at blocking the puck before it gets to Joey Mac, so far.

1:31 Hooking penalty to Nick Lidstrom.

Shots stay 6-6 through the period. Blocked shots 9-1 for Detroit. I think they need to trust Joey Mac a little more, if they’re going to generate any offense.

2nd period:

15:32 Tripping penalty to Ian White. It kind of looked like Oliver Ekman-Larsson just stepped on White’s stick.

13:44 Hooking penalty to Pavel Datsyuk. Pasha and Valtteri Filppula had been forechecking hard shorthanded, and Ekman-Larsson kind of skated through where Pasha was reaching for the puck.

13:05 Goal for Hanzal– Ray Whitney’s shot deflects off Hanzal screening MacDonald.

This game is much like a desert day– dull and causing me a headache. Also I keep thinking of the line from “Treasure Buddies” that they kept showing previews of during the Puppy Bowl yesterday: “Desert? I thought you said dessert!”

Kronwall has some sort of minor injury that he’s icing down on the bench between shifts.

4:56 Tripping penalty to Michal Rozsival. Let’s see if the extra power play practice did any good.

2:46 Delay of game penalty to Rostislav Klesla (puck over glass).

2:36 GOAL for Johan Franzen! Datsyuk passes to Henrik Zetterberg behind the net, Hank flips it out front, and Mule taps it in.

Shots 14-8 Detroit in the second.

3rd period:

10 minutes in and not much to speak of. Joey Mac has looked sharp, particularly on a scoring chance generated by a BAD giveaway by (who else) Ericsson.

Datsyuk had a glorious scoring chance right by the goal line, but tried to get the shot away too quickly and just plain missed the net.

5:57 Tripping penalty to Shane Doan.

0:50 Joey Mac out of the net for an extra skater.

0:28.5 Empty net goal for Hanzal.

Meh. It wasn’t bad enough to bring Statler and Waldorf in for commentary, but it certainly was a beige game. That’s enough of that long road trip business.

Next up: the Wings return home to host the Edmonton Oilers at 7:30 on Wednesday.