If this is what hockey can look like on a frigid Monday night in February, imagine Detroit and Montreal -- two of the NHL's most storied franchises at the top of their games -- facing off for a seven-game Stanley Cup playoff series in April.
This was as good as hockey gets in the regular season: Two teams near the top of the standings fighting for points to keep them there. Tight-checking, chippy, neither team willing to give an inch. Yet there was plenty of action at either end, with two All-Star goalies turning away everything they faced until the 57th minute, when disaster struck.
Jimmy Howard, in his second game after missing more than a month, was back to form, blocking a shot that ricocheted off the side boards. As that happened, Montreal's Tomas Plekanec skated off the bench on a shift change and the guy who was supposed to pick him up, Pavel Datsyuk, fell down. Plekanec took a nifty pass from teammate Dale Weise, skated unabated into the high slot and, using Niklas Kronwall as a screen, fired the puck past Howard for the winning goal. Max Pacioretty sealed it with an empty-net goal for a 2-0 Montreal victory.
Players said it indeed felt like a playoff game the way both teams played -- and the way the crowd responded.
"It was a great atmosphere, very loud," said Gustav Nyquist. "Two good teams playing hard to get points and secure home ice (in the playoffs). Although there weren't many goals, I think the fans liked what they saw."
Did they ever. The 173rd consecutive sellout crowd of 20,027 loved every second of it. And for the last 12 minutes or so of the third period, they implored their teams to make the winning play.
"Let's go Wings!" Detroit fans roared.
And a sizeable contingent of Montreal fans responded just as resoundingly, "Go Habs Go."
When Plekanec scored, the thousands of Canadiens fans in the crowd let loose with a cheer that must have made Montreal players feel as though they were back home. That is what would make a Detroit-Montreal first-round playoff series so attractive.
But Detroit coach Mike Babcock wasn't biting when someone asked him about that after the game.
"I just want to have a first-round opponent. How's that?" he said, allowing that despite how well his team has played so far this year, it has yet to secure a playoff spot. With points getting harder to come by -- and a brutal six-game swing through the Western Conference coming up -- he's taking nothing for granted.
"This was a good opportunity for our guys tonight," Babcock said. "I liked it because it was a good evaluation for our players. Can you carry a guy on your back? Because if you can't, you can't play in the playoffs."
That's how tight the checking was Monday night.
"We played well. We executed good. We just didn't score," Babcock said. "It was a check fest out there. Not much happened. They had two chances in the third, and they scored on one of them."
The game was exactly what the Wings expected, and their game-plan was near perfect. Both clubs are puck-possession teams, and Detroit found a way to control it more by winning an astounding 63 percent of the face-offs (39-23) against a Montreal club that led the league in that category with 54 percent.
Little wonder the players felt good about their performance despite their third straight loss. They gave up eight goals in their previous two games (4-1 loss at Pittsburgh and a 5-4 shootout loss to Winnipeg).
"If we play like we did tonight, we'll be in pretty good shape," Nyquist said.
"I thought we played a pretty good game," Wings forward Tomas Tatar said. "It was like a playoff game. One goal was going to make the difference."
It doesn't get easier, starting Wednesday in Chicago -- a team many believe is the best team in the NHL and favored strongly to make a long run in the playoffs.
"I'm not worried," Tatar said. "If we play the same game we played tonight, we'll be OK."
With the victory, the Canadiens put some distance between themselves and Detroit. With the two points, Montreal earned at least a tie atop the Eastern Conference standings with Tampa Bay, which was playing at Los Angeles Monday night. At 72 points, the Wings remain comfortably in third in the Atlantic Division, but slipped to sixth overall in the conference.
"Every game is crucial," Babcock said. "We need points. Look at the standings, and the league is very tight right now. You look up and see you're close to the top. Then you look down and see you're close to the bottom as well."
Hard to argue with that. But for a cold night in February with the temperatures falling again to minus-double figures, this game between Detroit and Montreal compelled us to dream of warmer days ahead.
And if the if the hockey Gods have any sense of justice at all, we'll see a lot more of these two teams in the springtime.
