Tonight: Dallas

Written by Kyle Kujawa

Monday, 30 November 2009 14:15

I briefly mentioned in my last post that I came up with an idea for a game preview thing I could do. Well, consider this the debut. I feel that a ton of other blogs cover the Wings side of things thoroughly, and then some, so I decided it might be a good idea to look at things from the other perspective. For the same reason I focus heavily on prospects on this blog (because there's just too much information scattered around the 'nets), I'll regularly put up game previews where we take a look at recently graduated Stars prospects just to help familiarize people with names they're seeing, but don't necessarily know where they've come from. I realize preview stuff doesn't get a whole lot of comments out there, but drop me a comment if this is something you think is interesting and you might want to see more in the future.

DETROIT NEWS:

-- One anonymous Red Wings player (Khan suggests Patrick Eaves) is a game-time decision. Kirk Maltby will play if they can't go. No other changes in lines to note.

-- Jimmy Howard gets the start, a reward for getting a win.

-- People hate Todd Bertuzzi less right now, so this would be a good time for him to explode for two or three goals. I can hope, right?

DALLAS NEWS:

-- Marty Turco, the Red Wings' favorite goalie, gets the start tonight.

Stars expected lineup:

Trevor Daley | Stephane Robidas
Karlis Skrastins | Nicklas Grossman
Mark Fistric | Matt Niskanen

Marty Turco

Spotlight on ...

James Neal -- You likely know who James Neal is, given that he's on the scoresheet almost nightly. Neal needs to be recognized because I think he's one of the most underrated players in the league... Or at least I thought that, until Pierre McGuire put him on his Canadian Olympic team. That is a little stretch, but Neal's still an incredible player. I had the chance to watch him for three full seasons with the Plymouth Whalers (something Ken Daniels is contractually obligated to mention about a dozen times, no doubt) and I knew he'd be a player at the next level.

On the 2006-07 team that won the OHL championship, he looked like one of the best in the league, although he didn't get that kind of recognition. Neal can skate like the wind, he can hit, and obviously, he can score. At 22, while the Olympics are likely out of reach for him right now, it doesn't look like an impossibility down the road.

Jamie Benn -- As much as I like Neal, I do not like Jamie Benn. He became on of the most overhyped prospects ever last season for reasons I don't understand. He was on the big stage last year with appearences at the World Junior Championships for Canada (one of the lowest drafted players on the team) and at the Memorial Cup for Kelowna. To his credit, he delivered, with four goals at the WJC and a four-goal game at the Memorial Cup, in a game in which he iced the puck several times towards an empty net, with a two-goal lead, looking for his record-tying fifth.

But Benn is an example to me of where stats don't tell the whole story.He knows where to be around the net, but he gets lucky -- which is a skill, no doubt. I've never been that blown away with his skills and I don't think he works as hard as people claim. I was pretty shocked to see that he made Dallas out of camp, as I expected he would need AHL time. However, he landed on the top line and produced a fair bit. Now off the top line, his production is starting to slide (though he does have points in four of his past six). Sometimes I think he's just a guy who's always going to prove me wrong, the rare breed who can make a career of just being in the right spot, but when I watch a Dallas game, I just don't see a guy who's going to make a long NHL career.

Fabian Brunnstrom -- In one of the most overplayed stories of all time, Brunnstrom was labeled by the media as "the next Daniel Alfredsson" en route to becoming one of the most overhyped prospects of all time. After playing in the lower Swedish leagues, Brunnstrom broke out in the SEL, with 37 points in 54 games (good for a guy who hadn't been playing a high level of hockey). He was courted by several teams over a three-month span that got way too much media exposure. Reportedly, two of his final four teams were Dallas and Detroit, with Detroit the media-frontrunner for being so Swedish. After attending a ton of Wings games including, if memory serves, Detroit's Game 4 8-2 win over Colorado in 2008, Brunnstrom signed with Dallas, citing his desire to not have to play in the AHL.

Less than a week later, under much less media hype, Detroit signed the MVP of the Finnish League in Ville Leino. Brunnstrom had a hat trick in his first NHL game, but overall an underwhelming rookie season in which a lot of people (including myself) realized he was pretty much doomed to fail based on the ridiculous expectations of what was just a good, not great, NHL prospect. Meanwhile, Detroit fans were pretty happy with Leino, the top offensive player on Grand Rapids. A year and a half after all the hype, Brunnstrom is rumored to be on the trading block and Dallas is not happy with his development. Meanwhile, Ville Leino is not on the block yet, but he's well on his way if he doesn't get his offensive production going soon.

How to beat Dallas: Take a ton of shots at Marty Turco and don't give him any time to handle the puck. It's a time tested strategy to take down Dallas, as Detroit's proven many times through Turco's career.