Detroit got a win Against Dallas on Thursday being outshot 40-21. Bernier, for 38 mins, was perfect. Greiss came in relief and held Dallas to 2 goals on 18 shots, enough to get the win on Fabbri’s hat trick. For the team to win today, it would take an equally Herculean effort in net. And this time, without Bernier to help.
They’re calling JBs injury “soft tissue”, and he hasn’t yet been placed on IR. In the meantime Greiss will have the reins. When Bernier fell early in the season, it was at the worst possible time. We ended up losing a lot of important (including Fabbri and Zadina) pieces, and Detroit took a beating. If there’s a bright side to this, Detroit has been scoring more lately. Greiss needs some run support, and hopefully he can get back to early season form.
Bobby Ryan is back in tonight. I expect a big game from him, whether is shows up on the score card or not. Ryan is one of the more physical forwards down in the corners. He has a fantastic “bounce back” factor and wants to be a part of some success. Cholowski was placed on the taxi squad, and it would be good to see him get in a game. He had a decent start in GR with 3 goals and 5 assists.
As for the title, Blashill was fielding questions as per usual. Someone asked him about being a goaltender and how that experience helped. I had to pause the feed and laugh as Blashill responded, “I was a sh*tty goaltender”. Just fantastic timing. Blash worked with Bob Daniels at Ferris St (and Rico Blasé who coaches Miami of Ohio. All three were in the same division as coaches at one point). Daniels, who I got to interview more than a decade ago, is one of the best kept secrets in collegiate hockey. He makes time for everyone, and has made the choice to stay in the collegiate ranks. If you haven’t gotten to know about him, it’s well worth your time. One of the kindest and most passionate hockey people I’ve ever met. He was a big part of Blashill becoming a coach for the USHL and then Western Michigan University. It was his success there that landed him with the Wings then Griffins then Wings again. I had the honor of interviewing a very young Blashill back then too. He was driving from Kalamazoo to Ann Arbor, doing his own scouting mid week. Whatever has happened in his tenure, Jeff was really good to me with that interview and his work ethic was and still is unreal.
Everything aside, this could be an unpleasant contest today. Dallas does not want to be a team that gets to the finals one year and misses the post season the next. The season is half over (if you can believe it) and they need to make hay. Expect it to be nasty out there. Let me know what you’re hoping to see. Gergeswillems has already predicted the loss, and his track record is almost flawless lately. Mad props to the resident seer of seers!
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