BOSTON – Here are five thoughts from the second period with the Red Wings leading the Bruins by a 2-0 score after the first 40 minutes of preseason action at TD Garden.
1) Linus Arnesson having a tough night. He was hemmed into his own end a couple of times, and appeared to take a bad gap/angle on Tomas Jurco. The speedy Wings forward blew past him, drew a slashing call and then fired a shot past Tuukka Rask for Detroit’s second goal. Arnesson has been on ice for both goals against at this point.
2) A little running around from Ryan Spooner and Frank Vatrano in the D-zone during Detroit’s first goal, which gave the Wings multiple chances before Drew Miller buried one under the bar on Tuukka Rask with a wrong foot wrist shot.
3) Seven generated shot attempts from Chris Kelly, who is getting Grade A chances all over the place. As I said after the first period, if Kelly is getting the best offensive chances for the hockey club then it’s not a good sign.
4) With his size, strength, smarts and aggressiveness, Joonas Kemppainen looks like a deluxe penalty killer. He also did an excellent job with a lead pass in the second period that sprung Kelly for a partial breakaway all alone, but Jimmy Howard was able to turn it away. Kemppainen looks like a keeper for that fourth line center job.
5) Drew Miller is all over the place for the Red Wings, and scored their first goal on a beauty of a wrist shot. It must be preseason if bottom six grit/veteran guys like Drew Miller and Chris Kelly are the guys leading the charge offensively for the respective teams.