There's a good article (if you like the Red Wings) in today's Detroit Free Press talking about how happy a lot of Wings players are just to be Red Wings. Here's a small snippet:The Wings have gotten off to a dominating start against the Pittsburgh Penguins, having shut them out back-to-back (4-0; 3-0). The Penguins have shown flashes (the first period of game 1 and chunks of the second period in game 2), but for the most part the Red Wings have completely controlled the play and on the few chances they do allow Osgood is there to make a clutch save.Cleary signed a five-year extension earlier this year that averages $2.8 million a season; he would have gone as high as $3.3 million had he hit the open market this summer. Niklas Kronwall signed a five-year extension last season, but only because that was the maximum term offered.
"I would have signed even longer," he said. "I really like being here, and any time we get a new player in, they always say this is by far the best place they've been."
That's because they hear it from the guys who've been in Detroit for a decade or more.
"Why move when you like it so much here?" Holmstrom asked. "I know my family is going to have it good here, and that's a big part of it, too. And I love, love to be on a winning team."
You can tell it's getting to some of the Pens players as they really started getting chippy (and cheap) in the third period last night. In just the last few minutes of that period alone they hammered Henrik Zetterberg after the whistle. Had two different players jack Johan Franzen in the head (only one of which was called). Franzen was playing his first game back after missing something like nine consecutive games with "concussion-like" symptoms and don't think guys like Gary Roberts didn't know that. Then they took a couple of runs at Osgood (who did ham it up on the second hit). Hey, I can appreciate a team getting smoked taking up their physical play a notch to try and get something going for the next game, but as Ron Burgundy would say, "that's bush."
