Clem the Clam Has Last Laugh in Detroit
Well, what do you know; miracles do happen!
Slamming Scott for his underperformances up to date—apparently did the trick.
He came out with a hunger in his belly to prove me, and all the rest of us doubters, wrong. And could he have done it in a better place?
Going to Hockeytown USA and leaving with two spanking new points for their troubles…
The Cats must be purring this morning as they get ready to face the Rangers in a tough back-to-back match-up.
Credit is due to Scott.
He really did step up and filled in that previously leaky five-hole of his and practically cemented the Panthers goal line.
And make no mistake, he was tested: 40 times to be correct.
Henrik Zetterberg stormed through several times, but was ultimately denied by Clemmensen. Only a Pavel Datsyuk powerplay goal in the second period slipped by Scott.
And frankly, if you give the Red Wings three clear cut chances in front of goal, on the man-advantage, something is bound to slip in.
The Cats came out with a defensive frame of mind in the first period. No doubt worried about Clem, after the goaltender had had such a slow start to the season, and the focus was on playing simple defensive hockey and helping the goalie as much as possible.
Florida was badly outshot in that opening period, and ultimately lucky not to fall behind, but took the intact score sheet to the second period with renewed confidence.
Knowing now that Clem could do his stuff when called upon, the Cats surged forward and were perhaps unlucky to lose the period by the lone goal from Datsyuk.
However, as many times before this season, the Panthers remained unfazed by being a goal down and could tie the game in the third period—courtesy of a fine link-up between Nathan Horton and Stephen Weiss.
Horton out-battled Zetterberg behind the Detroit goal and threw a pinpoint pass to Weiss—who had wide open net at the back post—to shuffle in the equalizing tally.
Filled with confidence, it was then the same pair of felines that set up Captain Bryan McCabe for a big slapshot in the ensuing overtime. McCabe shot an unstoppable puck past Chris Osgood—and then it was off to seventh heaven for the Cats.
They’ll have to come down quick however, as they today face a tough Conference foe in the NY Rangers at the MSG. And they will do so without one of the Florida players that’s been playing best of late: Cory Stillman.
Stillman went down with a knee injury against Detroit and “will be out for some time”. Pete DeBoer will call up a forward from Rochester to fill Cory’s skates, rather than trusting Ville Koistinen for the job.
It remains to be seen if the Panthers can take a bite out of the Big Apple tonight, but either way, the future is starting to look rather more promising for the fans and team as they are finally finding some hockey chemistry.
The Florida Panthers are now back to .500 and have gone 7-2-1 in the last 10 games. In addition, we are now a mere three points behind the Tampa Bay Lightning; who currently sit in eighth spot of the East. The NY Rangers are ninth—also three points ahead of us.
That makes tonight’s game all the more important.
Tomas Vokoun is expected to be back in goal for the contest. But now that we are starting to see the real Clemmensen perform; Tomas might be getting more nights off in the future. And considering the tight schedule—that’s definitely good news for the team as a whole.
Scott really did do a good job of Clam-ing up the Panthers goal and was very stingy when it came to letting go of any rebounds.
Now that’s the kind of play we want to see from the big man!
Clem the Clam—it has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
To have locked up a player of Zetterberg’s ability “for a mere” $6 million annually will be seen as a major accomplishment for the organization. If they didn’t already have a firm foundation under their feet, the Red Wings can now look forward with some confidence to the clubs future and also have some space to negotiate new contracts with Marian Hossa, Johan Franzen and Mikael Samuelsson – all of which can become UFA’s at the season’s end if no new contracts are agreed to.
