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Thursday, 23 October 2008 08:22 |
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Wing win 4-3 at St. Louis.. some random thoughts:
-- The Blues often chose to put the Patrik Berglund line on the ice against the Pavel Datsyuk line early in this game. With Berglund being a rookie, David Perron a second-year player and Paul Kariya a defensive liability, you wouldn't think that would be a prime matchup for Coach Andy Murray. But the threesome did quite well against Datsyuk, Marian Hossa and Tomas Holmstrom. Murray changed his forward lines in the second period and the matchup ended, but it worked for a short while.  -- St. Louis goes with five forwards on its first power play, using Kariya and Lee Stempniak on the points. I'm not sure when the last time that a team did that for any length of time. It is unusual, but it's working for the Blues. Does anyone else remember Scotty Bowman in the late 70s using two defensemen at the net on the power play and two forwards on the points? -- OK. The most controversial thing I've said in the past year was that Ty Conklin overplayed his angles in his first game as a Red Wing. As far as controversy goes, I'm pretty weak. Now I'm in a spot where it's difficult to say that Conklin played great in his second game -- which he did -- because I don't want to seem as though I'm caving to pressure. So I won't say how impressive Conklin was, how spot-on he was with his angles, how quick he looked. But maybe I can say that Conklin could have been a few inches further out challenging Brad Boyes on his goal. There. Dancing with controversy once more.
-- Tomas Holmstrom is playing as well as he ever has. Such a difference from last year's goals-being-waved-off start. Is Homer playing ever so slightly further out from the crease than before? -- Pavel Datsyuk has to be the best player in hockey right now.
When six-time Norris Trophy winner Nicklas Lidstrom skated against Blues' rookie Patrik Berglund, tonight, it marked a first in the hockey career of the Red Wings' captain.
In Berglund, Lidstrom found himself up against the son of a former teammate.
 "That hasn't happened before," said Lidstrom, 38.
Berglund, five games into his NHL career, is a 20-year-old center who was a first-round draft pick of the St. Louis Blues in 2006.
Berglund was born in Vasteras, Sweden, in the summer before Nicklas Lidstrom started his professional career as an 18-year-old with his hometown team, Vasteras. Berglund's father, Anders, was a high-scoring center for Vasteras.
Anders Berglund and Lidstrom were teammates for three seasons. Patrik Berglund was a toddler whose playground was often the locker room, spending time at the rink on days when his mother was working at the hospital.
"I was in the locker room a lot when I was little," said Patrik Berglund. "I don't think (Lidstrom) remembers me from then. But I ran around the locker room a lot."
 Now, Patrik Berglund is a 6-foot-4, 210-pound second-line center in the NHL, feeling his way out as a professional much as Lidstrom did 20 years ago.
"(Lidstrom) was just 18, but he was already playing as the superstar he is right now," Anders Berglund told the Belleville News-Democrat. "We played together for two years, especially on the power play. I loved to play with him, he never lost a puck."
Patrik Berglund and Lidstrom saw each other a couple of times over this past summer after Berglund finished his third season with Vasteras.
"He's really big back home, but he's a lot bigger here," said Patrik Berglund. "He's been here for 17 years. He's really famous back home. Everyone knows who Nicklas Lidstrom is, but it's on different levels."
And did the younger Berglund quiz his father's former teammate about hockey?
"He's very quiet," said Berglund. "I'm a forward, He's a D-man. I don't know if he'd have too many things to say to me about that."
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