A first period that seemed to be more than a little uneventful turned around in a hurry with a bad line-change by Detroit. The Wings were trying to get off of the ice while the Blues’ fourth line was out. I’m sure that they figured that they were in the clear even with the goof. Not so, says Scott Nichol, scoring his second goal of the season in his 600th career game:
Whoops, Detroit.
The period continued to be a fast paced game with no penalties until Brad Stuart laid a hard check on Alex Pietrangelo that Chris Stewart, on the bench at the time, took exception to. When the line change happened, Stewart didn’t pretend that he was out there to play the puck; he just went straight for Stuart to show the Red Wing that he didn’t appreciate the hit:
To spark the Blues was probably his intention, as well as sending a message that you don’t nail top players. However, since he came off of the bench and went to Stuart, that got him an instigator on top of the fighting major, putting Detroit on the power play to start the second period. He also wound up with a 10 minute misconduct. While I respect what Stewart was trying to do, I’m really of the opinion that maybe he should focus on hitting the net a little more than hitting Brad Stuart in the face.