DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
http://www.freep.com/section/SPORTS
May 31, 2009
First of all, when 22 year-old Justin Abdelkader scores a huge goal, his first ever in an NHL game — let alone the Stanley Cup finals — and someone asks him where it ranks in his young career and he says “I’d have to put it right up there with Michigan State” — well, you know we are too spoiled with hockey around here.
Detroit's Marian Hossa fights for the puck on the boards with Pittsburgh's Marc-Andre Fleury and Rob Scuderi. (JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/DFP)
But that’s the kind of night Saturday was at the Joe. All the Humpty Dumpties that fell off the wall couldn’t put a crack in the Red Wings’ results. Not that fact that Pavel Datsyuk, their flashiest star, remains in street clothes. Not the fact that Nicklas Lidstrom, their captain, was coming off a groin issue. Not the fact that Abdelkader wouldn’t even be playing if not for an injury to someone else. Not the fact that NBC put two Star Cams on Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. (What? The Wings don’t have ONE GUY worth a camera?)
“When you’re in the finals,” Lidstrom said, after the 3-1 victory in Game 1, “everybody’s so happy and excited to be here again.”
The key word is “again.” There was a lot of excitement at Joe Louis Arena, but it was familiar excitement, not the kind that leaves you heaving for breath. There’s hardly a man on the Red Wings roster who hasn’t been to a Cup finals before, and that means a lot as far as getting you through a game for which you might otherwise be overwhelmed or under-rested.
And, yes, any game that starts with Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay dropping pucks has to be a feel-good event for Detroit fans.
But this Stanley Cup opener had many layers in between the flying bounces and ricochets that defined the score.
And that makes tonight’s Game 2 critical. The Wings had better watch out.
Because Pittsburgh saw a lot of things Saturday night beyond the flashing red lights.
And many of them were encouraging.
These stats don’t lie
“Did you leave this game more confident than after Game 1 of last year?” Crosby was asked. The Wings won that opener, 4-0.
“Yeah, definitely,” Crosby said. “We made a few mistakes tonight, but so did they.”
And you can’t make mistakes in this series. That should be obvious. Both teams are too good, too carnal, they sniff out a turnover and quickly chomp, converting it to blood. Two Pittsburgh defensemen made a mistake in the first period, turning the puck over in their own end: Chomp. Bite. Brad Stuart banked a shot into the net, 1-0.
Minutes later, Stuart made the mistake, misjudging Malkin’s stick work. Chomp. Bite. That puck was stolen and fired on Chris Osgood, who allowed a bad rebound — chomp, bite, Ruslan Fedotenko knocked it past him, 1-1.
Excellence demands excellence. It will embarrass anything less. There were points in this game where the Wings were, as Osgood would say, “on our heels.” The fact that Pittsburgh goals didn’t come out of that was a combination of luck and Osgood. The goalie was never bigger than on Saturday, when he stopped a charging Malkin at pointblank range. The whole building was on its feet on that one, it was a cage match, a royal joust, their star, our star, and Ozzie denied the guy and it electrified the team and the place.
“It’s huge,” Lidstrom said of that play. “It gives our team a boost. The momentum could have swung in their favor.”
He’s right. And you can’t count on Osgood to be that stellar every time. The glaring numbers on the stat sheet Saturday night were for giveaways (Detroit had 20, compared to 13 by the Penguins) and shots (Pittsburgh had 32; the Wings, who normally overwhelm their opponents’ netminders, had 30).
Those numbers can’t remain, or there won’t be as much cheering for the Red and White tonight.
“You have to take away the turnovers,” Lidstrom said. “This is a really quick transition team. … You can’t give them a chance coming through the neutral zone with speed.”
A couple of weird bounces
But that’s the thing about these Wings in the playoffs. They are great at adjusting. The challenge will be doing it tonight, after some of the adrenaline dries up. Two games in two nights is even harder than it sounds, and Pittsburgh is younger and more desperate. A second loss would put the Penguins in a tough hole — not an impossible one, but a tough one — and I think they all know this fast turnaround is a chance to catch the Wings with their laurels up and their guard down.
“They got a few bounces,” Crosby said. “That’s what it came down to.”
Whether he is that cavalier about it — or whether the whack he took at Kirk Maltby at the end of the game revealed a deeper frustration — we will learn tonight.
Detroit's Justin Abdelkader celebrates in front of his teammates and Pittsburgh's Philippe Boucher and Jordan Staal after scoring a goal during 3rd period action. (JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/DFP)Meanwhile, yes, they did get “a few bounces” but can we just take a moment of appreciation for Abdelkader’s goal? The kid is only in the lineup because of Kris Draper’s and Tomas Kopecky’s injuries, and he fires a shot, sees it fly into the air, flipping over Pittsburgh’s Jordan Staal as if he were a magician’s foil (follow the birdie, where’s the birdie?) and then Abdelkader catches it on the fly, drops it and fires it in?
Or as he described it: “The puck kind of went up in the air. I jumped up, grabbed it, pulled it down and put it on net.”
Yeah. You know. That old play.
Reasons to doubt Fleury
A few other observations from this “Wow-we’ve-already-started?” opener. For all the fuss over Crosby and Malkin, how many series need to be played before someone talks about Johan Franzen before he forces you to? Since last spring, The Mule has affected the flow of every single playoff round. And every time a new one starts, the talk is about Henrik Zetterberg, Osgood, Lidstrom or the other team.
Here was Franzen on Saturday night, once again, scoring the winning goal by inventing it, steering a puck off the boards with a backhand that bounced off the leg of Pittsburgh’s goalie. Franzen now has 11 goals in the playoffs, and he is like the Mighty Mouse of this roster, just flying in and saving the day and then retreating back into some quiet disguise.
Another thought: Is it just me or does Osgood seem more relaxed than any time in his career? The NBC cameras caught him smiling and laughing a few minutes before the game. After the victory, he was as casual as the guy across the table at Starbucks. You get the feeling earlier in his career, Osgood spoke of his own confidence as a way to manufacture it; now it appears he’s just telling you how it is.
Meanwhile, his counterpart, Fleury, will be the subject of great scrutiny. You can dismiss Saturday night as some fluky pucks that got past him, but he is not a great positional goalie, he’s often down quickly, and if tonight he should surrender anything easy, some of that Pittsburgh confidence is going to quietly wane.
But that’s a big if. Most playoff series develop like book chapters, some more critical than others. Game 2 is always a pivot point, but especially so when it’s 24 hours after Game 1. Pittsburgh wants this one even more than Saturday night. And the Wings must remember what got them here, and it wasn’t the bouncy boards of Joe Louis Arena. It was attention to detail, puck control and a minimum of turnovers.
If they deliver on those, they won’t have to rely on flipping pucks that you catch midair.
Although, be honest, you wouldn’t mind seeing another one of those, would you?
Wings prevail after two goals off Fleury’s hindquarters
BY MITCH ALBOM
DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
http://www.freep.com/section/SPORTS
May 30, 2009
Detroit's Daniel Cleary watches the puck shot by teammate Johan Franzen go off the leg of Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury for a goal. (JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/DFP)
That’s the way the puckie bounces …
… around here.
What? You never heard of the famous shoot-it-off-the-boards-and
-let-it-trickle-off-the back-of-the-
goaltender shot? We use it all the time in Detroit. None of us was surprised when Brad Stuart scored the first goal of the Stanley Cup finals with that old chestnut.
What? You never heard of the shoot-it-off-the-boards-
and-backhand-it-lightly-so-it-scrapes
-off-the-goalie’s-leg maneuver? Of course Johan Franzen scored the second goal that way. We have fifth-graders who know that move.
What? You never tried, in your backyard pond, the always popular shoot-it-off-the-post-
and-flip-it-over-the-defenseman-then-catch-and-drop-and-
shoot-it-in move? Where did you grow up? Young Justin Abdelkader pulled that off Saturday night, and he wasn’t even in the NHL at the start of the month!
That’s the way the puckie bounces … around here, and if the Penguins aren’t ready for it, well, maybe they shouldn’t be….
… shouldn’t be …
Ah, forget it. Call it what it was. One of the weirdest bouncing openers in recent memory. It’s not that the Red Wings didn’t work hard enough to earn this 3-1 victory. They surely did. But on another night, they work just as hard and don’t have any of those particular goals.
Heck, a nuclear physicist might not be able to draw those up again.
Detroit's Chris Osgood covers the puck in the goal crease. (JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/DFP)
Penguins came out firing
In addition to the goals, how about the third-period heart-stopper where Sidney Crosby fired on Chris Osgood at breath-smelling range, and Ozzie flopped to block it and the puck flipped up and landed on his back.
Right between the “Os” and the “good.”
“I’ve never seen that happen before,” Crosby said.
Oh, come on, Sid. That old play?
No, OK, even we admit, that’s a fresh one. But as Osgood told NBC about the bouncy boards in Detroit: “It makes it fun, but for a goaltender it’s not.”
Just ask Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who no doubt had nightmares of ricochets and pucks flipping like burgers. But hockey messes with you that way, and the great teams let the bounces help them to victory but don’t let them haunt to defeat. I know we have springy boards at Joe Louis Arena. But the building didn’t win Game 1.
The Wings did.
They did it with depth. (Abdelkader? Are you kidding? Is he out of college yet?) And they did it with goaltending. Osgood had one bad bounce of his own — a rebound that came out too far and was cashed in by Ruslan Fedotenko. But outside of that, Ozzie was spectacular. He saved this game on a night when the Pens were ready for an upset.
“When I get in the net I’m not doubting myself one bit,” he told NBC.
One day, someday, his critics will finally feel that way, too.
The little keys to victory
Meanwhile let’s say this about the Penguins. These are not last year’s star-gazers. Little brother has grown up. The kids are shaving and have licenses and may even drink a beer or two.
Pittsburgh is not intimidated. Not by this stage. Not by this place. If you thought a nervous hangover from last year’s defeat might haunt the Pens’ early minutes, you were wrong; Pittsburgh started strong and got stronger. If you thought rookie coach Dan Bylsma might swallow hard in his first finals, forget it. Bylsma was juggling combinations with his biggest players before the halfway point.
There were stretches where the Pens had the Wings back on their heels, and stretches where only Osgood kept this thing from slipping away.
“Ozzie made some real critical saves,” Mike Babcock said. When asked about the boards at the Joe, Babcock rolled his eyes. “Every rink you go to there are little nuances.”
Here’s another nuance: Henrik Zetterberg and crew once again did a great job draping Crosby, limiting him to two shots and no points. And another nuance: The Wings won with a less-than-healthy captain Nicklas Lidstrom.
“It’s a race to four,” Bylsma said. “They’ve got one.”
Well, then, here’s a last nuance: The Wings won without Pavel Datsyuk. And he’s got moves that make the puck look boring.
We’ll see how things bounce tonight.
Additional Facts
What happened
Brad Stuart scored at 13:38 of the first period when he caught the puck at the blue line. Stuart’s shot bounced off the end boards and banked in off Marc-Andre Fleury. Ruslan Fedotenko scored for Pittsburgh at 18:37 when he pounced on Evgeni Malkin’s rebound and found an open net. Malkin had intercepted Stuart’s clearing attempt. Johan Franzen banked in a backhand shot off Fleury at 19:02 of the second period. Justin Abdelkader made it 3-1 with his first goal of the playoffs at 2:46 of the third period.
Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay drop the first pucks before the start of game one of the Stanley Cup Finals. (KIRTHMON F. DOZIER/DFP)
Legends night: Red Wings greats Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay performed the ceremonial puck drop with team captains Nicklas Lidstrom and Sidney Crosby.
Overheard: Marian Hossa: “We have to be better, help our goalie more. He was outstanding tonight.” Sidney Crosby: “We’re confident that we can get one here and go home.”
Back boards magic: Going back to Darren Helm’s goal Wednesday, the Wings have scored three straight goals using the back boards. “Sometimes if you can’t get a clean shot at the net,” Stuart said, “you can throw it wide and it’s going to bounce somewhere out front if you play it right. We play enough in here to know that.” Franzen said: “If you don’t have a lane, you don’t want to hit the shin pads of a forward and get a turnover, so you try to put it behind and hope for a good bounce.”
Trash talking: Hossa said there was trash talk, “maybe once in a while, but you try not to listen.” … Crosby took umbrage at Kirk Maltby, afterwards explaining that: “He was doing what he always does, giving guys lip service and things like that. I two-handed him on top of the foot there as we were skating by. I thought I’d whack him and that was it.”
Possessing the puck: The Wings won 71% of face-offs.
Contact MITCH ALBOM: 313-223-4581 or malbom@freepress.com. Catch “The Mitch Albom Show” 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Also catch “Monday Sports Albom” 7-8 p.m. Mondays on WJR. To read his recent columns, go to www.freep.com/mitch.
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