Detroit loses Homer, serves as cure-all to Blues' recent struggles
St. LOUIS 3, DETROIT 2
Detroit loses Homer, serves as cure-all to Blues' recent struggles
December 21, 2007
BY GEORGE SIPPLE
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
ST. LOUIS -- With Tomas Holmstrom out of the game with a knee injury, the referees appeared to lose their zest to call interference.
The Blues scored two power-play goals in the third period to beat the Red Wings, 3-2, Thursday night at the Scottrade Center.
Lee Stempniak's power-play goal at 14:02 was the difference, but the Wings thought Chris Osgood was interfered with on the play by Dave Backes.
"It's a tough loss," said Wings coach Mike Babcock. "The part I don't like is -- I thought we competed hard and they were better than us in the first 10 minutes. I don't like their second power-play goal when the guy's clearly two feet in the crease and backed our goalie in. That's interference. We should know Homer gets those calls all the time when he's not even near the paint. So I thought that was a swing in the game right there."
Holmstrom, who seems to be a magnet for interference calls even though he's one of the best net front players in the league, left the game late in the first period with a right knee injury.
"We're optimistic that it's not a big deal," Babcock said. "We're not sure until we get our people to have a look at it."
Holmstrom was expected to travel with the team to Minnesota for Saturday's game.
The loss snapped a 12-game point streak (10-0-2) for the Wings.
"I thought we competed hard, we just didn't get enough to get it done," Babcock said. "It didn't go in for us and it went in for them."
The Wings outshot the Blues in each period, including 12-5 in the third, and finished with a 36-24 shooting advantage. But the Wings were 0-for-4 on the power play.
The Blues did get 18 shots on Osgood in the first two periods, part of a plan to be very aggressive.
"They've been playing us real good this year," Osgood said. "We played a good game, considering that we've been playing a lot of games. They just got a couple power-play goals late and that's what stung us."
Did Osgood think there was interference on the winning goal?
"Yeah, I mean that's a lot more than Homer's done," Osgood said. "That's just the Homer effect. We get those called against us all day. Thing is you warn the ref over and over all game, and he says he'll call it."
The Wings trailed 1-0 after a goal by Brad Boyes at 7:11 of the first period.
But Valtteri Filppula and Mikael Samuelsson scored 30 seconds apart in the second period to give the Wings a 2-1 advantage.
The Blues tied the game at 4:22 of the third on Keith Tkachuk's power play, which came after a hooking penalty to Niklas Kronwall at 3:42. Paul Kariya's shot deflected in off Tkachuk's leg. It was Tkachuk's first goal in 16 games.
Former Wing Manny Legace made 35 saves for the Blues.
"We've won lots of these back-to-backs and we were unable to get it done tonight," said Babcock. "Now we've got to start a new streak."