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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Stimulus Pack: The Big 3 are Bouncing Back

I want to speak on a few guys who played an excellent game of hockey last game. I tried to stay on track with my post-game recap, so I didn't end up talking about them as much as I wanted to. A while back, Jeff Riger from 97.1 The Ticket was asking fans after one of the regular season games to nickname the line of Zetterberg, Filppula and Bertuzzi. As expected, there were a lot of attempts by callers to merge all three names together. This would work if their last three names were James, Smith and Stone or something, but come on...you're not going to get anything easily remembered or pronounced from mashing their surnames into one big monstrosity. So I emailed in with my theory. I'm thinkin'...Motor City, 3 forwards, cars...


I call them 'The Big 3'.

The Big 3 basically won Game 2 for the Red Wings if you look at the stat sheet: all 3 played between 15 and 18 minutes, and I realize that doesn't lead the team in ice-time, but the motto is "Quality over Quantity" am I right?

Zetterberg - 3G, +2, 6 SOG, 0 PIM
Filppula - 2G, 1A, +2, 6 SOG, 0 PIM
Bertuzzi - 2A, +1, 3 SOG, 2 PIM
Total - 5G, 3A, +5, 15 SOG, 2 PIM

That's a pretty good night's work, hmm?

Now I know some of these points came on the PP (and you know how much I'm rejoicing THAT fact), but even then did Hank and Flip share points with Filppula setting up Zetterberg's powerplay goal. These guys need to keep working together and give the first line breathing room to get comfortable. Shoulder the offensive load until Dats, Franzen and Holmstrom get their mojo back. We need all four lines doing what they need to do if we want to see the Red Wings go far, so we need to get more help from the top line. Everything else seems to be working itself out.

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