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Red Wings News & Notes: Franzen just keeps rolling along Friday, May 09, 2008 He's already toppled two Gordie Howe records in the past couple months and he equaled another one Thursday night. Simply put, the man known as the Mule is on a roll. Johan Franzen's power play goal Thursday night gave him a five-game goal scoring streak in the playoffs, tying the club record shared by Howe and Ted Lindsay. He's already broken Howe's records for most goals in a playoff series and most game-winning goals in a month. "I don't want to think about that right now," Franzen told reporters Friday about his latest flirtation with a Howe record. "My only concern right now is to win seven more games this year." Franzen leads all players with 12 goals in the playoffs. On a team with Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, the big Swedish forward is making a name for himself. "I don't think anybody would have said, including Johan, if you said he would be leading the National Hockey League in scoring today, that people would have bet on that," said coach Mike Babcock. "And yet in saying that he's been excellent. He had another great tip last night." When Franzen scored Thursday night on that tip of a Niklas Kronwall shot, it was his 12th goal in 11 playoff games. If you go back to the regular season, he had 15 goals over his final 16 games. Do the math. That's 27 goals in 27 games since March 2, including both regular season and playoffs. "I think he's got all the attributes to be a complete player in the league," Lidstrom told the Windsor Star. "He's scoring goals where he's just being patient and going to the front of the net. He's playing with a ton of confidence. He's so tough to knock off the puck and has such great balance." The 28-year-old Franzen, a late bloomer, was a third round pick (97th overall) in 2004. He joined the Red Wings directly from the Swedish Elite League in 2005-06, posting 12 goals and 10 in his first two seasons before notching 27 this past regular season. "He’s really come into his own over the three years he’s been here, from basically going from a guy we thought was going to play on our minor-league team to now," Babcock said recently. "[He's] a significant factor on our team offensively, defensively, on the power play and on the penalty kill. And Franzen, along with linemates Valtteri Filppula and Mikael Samuelsson, have given the Red Wings a potent second line in the playoffs. "I think in the playoffs, you need to spread the scoring around a little bit," said Zetterberg. "You need to have secondary scoring. ... If you want to go deep in playoffs, you have to have good depth. We’ve have that so far and, hopefully, we’ll continue doing that.
Red Wings looking for improvement Although they won Thursday's series opener, the Detroit Red Wings still think they have room for improvement in Game 2 as they prepare for a better effort from the Stars. "The big thing is we know we're going to be better," said coach Mike Babcock. "We were off a little while. But we think we'll be much quicker and harder to play against. That's going to be our focus." The Red Wings think one area where they can do more is in five-on-five play. Three of their four goals came on the power play Thursday night. "We had a pretty good game. We were worried about the layoff," said defenseman Chris Chelios. "Five-on-five we think we can do a little better job creating some opportunities." Chelios a finalist for the Masterton Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios is a finalist for the Masterton Trophy, which goes to the NHL player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. "I've been around a long time," said Chelios. "Perseverance I guess would be the word, or tenaciousness. It's a great honor." The 46-year-old Chelios is in his 24th NHL season, and became the second oldest player in NHL history, second to only Gordie Howe. Toronto left wing Jason Blake and Edmonton right wing Fernando Pisani are the other finalists. Early in the season Blake was diagnosed with a rare, but treatable form of leukemia. Pisani missed the first third of the season because of ulcerative colitis. Quotable "The first game is always the toughest to win until you've played the first game. Then it's the second game until you play the third game. So the biggest game of the series is tomorrow night because it's the one we're playing." Detroit coach Mike Babcock
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