Red Wings fall to Ducks in Game 3 after Abdelkader ejected for questionable hit

By Michael Caples –

DETROIT – What a difference a hit can make.

Justin Abdelkader caught Toni Lydman with his head down deep in the Anaheim zone with five minutes to go in the second period, and the Red Wings’ forward delivered a bone-jarring hit on the Anaheim defenseman.

The hit energized the Joe Louis Arena crowd, but it also meant a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct for the Muskegon native. Anaheim took advantage, as Nick Bonino scored the game’s first goal just 18 seconds later.

“Obviously he’s a physical guy who was taking the body hard, and his shoulder hit his shoulder,” coach Mike Babcock said of the Abdelkader hit. “The kid went down hard, and they called it a major. Now I’m not involved in the next part of the process. He hit him hard, he’s a big guy – he hit him hard.”

Babcock was then asked about the fact that the call wasn’t made right away, and the Wings’ coach said he thought the referees were trying to make the right call.

“Well that’s part of it. These referees are no different than the players and the coaches. They’re trying to make the right calls, and get to the Stanley Cup Final. They’re trying to do the right thing, and they’re trying to make the right decision, to me. It was a hard check.”

The Red Wings were never able to recover, dropping Game 3 by a 4-0 score.

With the win, the Ducks took a 2-1 series lead in the Western Conference Quarterfinals match-up.

Ryan Getzlaf and Emerson Etem added third-period goals for the Ducks, while the Red Wings failed to beat Jonas Hiller.

Detroit had four 5-on-4 power-play situations, one 5-on-3 situation, and one 4-on-3 situation, and they were held scoreless on all opportunities.

“Well I think it was a strange game,” captain Henrik Zetterberg said. “Lots of special teams, it’s tough to get any momentum there. I think in the first we had a lot of power plays, then they kind of got it back, when they scored on Abby’s penalty there, we did a good kill the rest of that, but then they scored another goal.”

After playing almost two periods of scoreless hockey, Bonino struck first during the five-minute major assessed to Abdelkader, firing a rebound over Jimmy Howard for his second goal of the season.

Getzlaf increased the Ducks’ lead in the second period while his team was shorthanded. The Anaheim captain stole the puck from Damien Brunner in the Red Wings’ zone then beat Jimmy Howard to the loose puck. Getzlaf side-stepped the Red Wings’ goaltender and slid the puck into an empty net for the game’s second goal.

Etem gave the Ducks a 3-0 lead by firing a shot past Howard after a no-look backhand pass from Teemu Selanne as he skated behind the Red Wings’ goal.

Belesky made it 4-0 by scoring on a one-timer just above the Detroit crease, on a feed from Saku Koivu.

“I definitely think there are a lot of things that we can do better, but tonight, overall, it was a special-teams battles,” Niklas Kronwall said. “Lots of penalties both ways, and they were able to get the job done.”

The Red Wings will look to even the series once again – with or without Abdelkader – Monday night at Joe Louis Arena. Puck drop is scheduled for 8 p.m.

Detroit won’t know if they have Abelkader in the line-up until after the NHL and former Red Wings star Brendan Shanahan review the game film.

“From what I gather, the league has done a pretty good job on these things and I’m not going to say anything,” Anaheim coach Bruce Boudreau said. “Mr. Shanahan can look at it, he can read into what he thinks. I just want our guy to be OK.”

Kronwall said he thought the impact of the hit was within the rules, but that if the call was charging, then it’s not worth discussing how Abdelkader hit Lydman.

“I haven’t seen the full replay, I just saw the impact itself,” Kronwall said. “I thought the impact itself looked, looked, you know, just from that quick replay I saw, looked fine. It looked like a shoulder to shoulder. They were saying he took too many strides and that’s why he got kicked out. If that’s the case, there’s not too much to say about it.”