courtesy Freep.com
by Helene St James
MONTREAL -- Nicklas Lidstrom spent the game in his hotel room, sick with the flu. His Red Wings teammates looked ill, too -- but they were healthy enough to show up at Bell Centre.
Despite cautions from their coach, the Wings, as coach Mike Babcock likes to put it, "got beat like a rented mule" Wednesday by the Canadiens, a struggling Eastern Conference opponent that looked like a Stanley Cup contender. They used four goals in the opening period to send the Wings into the All-Star break with a 7-2 defeat.
"There is no excuses whatsoever," Niklas Kronwall said. "We weren't there whatsoever. They played pretty solid, but a lot of the things that happened were a lot of freebies. Our defensive zone coverage was nowhere to be found. The way we played tonight just can't happen."
It couldn't have been a much more undignified end to a seven-game winning streak built on grinding out victories against tough opponents.
"It just reminds you why you should never get feeling too good about yourself," Babcock said, "because as soon as you do, you get brought down to earth. It was a little humble pie, to say the least. It's unfortunate that people came to see the Detroit Red Wings and never got to see them."
Jimmy Howard, who's off to his first All-Star Game on Sunday, left after getting beat four times on 12 shots in the opening 20 minutes. Backup Ty Conklin gave up two goals 4 minutes into the second period. The line led by Pavel Datsyuk, the Wings' other representative at the All-Star events in Ottawa, didn't have a good night; the line led by Henrik Zetterberg had a worse one. The only line with energy was Darren Helm, Danny Cleary and Drew Miller.
Jiri Hudler scored twice in the third period, far too late to make a difference.
"Terrible, terrible game," Zetterberg said. "Four-nothing after the first. We weren't there. We weren't there physically. We weren't there mentally."
The carnage that left the Wings 13-14 on the road began 5 minutes into the game, when Scott Gomez rushed into Detroit's zone and fired the puck on net; the puck hit Rene Bourque's stick as he drove to the net. Alexei Emerlin took advantage of Howard being screened to score at 10:56, and by the end of the first period, David Desharnais and Tomas Plekanec had piled on, Plekanec in the last minute when he connected on Bourque's rebound.
"Tough start, and then we didn't really get anything going in any aspect of our game," Brad Stuart said. "We did just win seven games in a row, but obviously, that's unacceptable to have an effort like tonight."
Conklin got beat on a scoop-around goal by Max Pacioretty, then by Desharnais on a power play. Erik Cole netted the seventh goal with just more than a minute left -- most allowed by Detroit since playing at Washington on Oct. 22.
The Wings were missing their captain, their top defenseman, their safety net and leader in Lidstrom, but a team that still fields Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Kronwall shouldn't have looked this inept against a team that won only 18 of its first 48 games.
This wasn't a once-a-season letdown. Just two weeks ago, at Nassau Coliseum against an equally struggling Islanders team, the Wings didn't take care of the puck and lost, 5-1.
"I thought because we were playing in such a great building in such a great environment that it was going to be a no-brainer," Babcock said. "But we just were awful."
