The Detroit Red Wings honored one of the legends of hockey today with one of the most embarrassing performances seen in years. Celebrating his 85th birthday this past week, Gordie Howe was honored at Joe Louis Arena by the crowd as they sang “Happy Birthday” to him during a stoppage of play in the second period. If anything were to sum up today’s game, it was the tweet I read below.
The Red Wings honored Gordie Howe on his birthday today by playing like the 1970-71 Red Wings. Oof.
— R.J. (@RaiderRJ) April 1, 2013
The 1970-71 season was Howe’s last in Detroit and their 22-45-11 record was the third-worse season in franchise history since then. The 55 points earned that year was still better than the worse in franchise history, when the 1985-86 Red Wings finished at 17-57-6.
In one of the ugliest games seen at Joe Louis Arena in quite sometime Chicago thrashed the Detroit 7-1. And it wasn’t even close. The rout was on so early, if you happened to miss the first five minutes of the game you missed nearly half the scoring as Chicago scored three goals in the first four minutes.
The first two goals were scored by Jeremy Morin & Brandon Saad. Saad had quite the game himself as he scored two goals in addition to one assist.
The third goal was credited to Dave Bolland, but it was Red Wings defenseman Jakub Kindl who scored the goal was he backhanded a clearing attempt past teammate Jimmy Howard at 4:12.
Howard lasted only till early in the second period when coach Mike Babcock pulled Howard after Jonathan Toews’ 17th goal of the season at 3:52. Backup Jonas Gustavsson didn’t need long to hear the groaning home crowd as Saad’s second goal came eight seconds after Toews scored.
The video below is of Kindl scoring on his own net.
