FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
http://www.freep.com/section/SPORTS
May 31, 2009
The two flashiest players in these Stanley Cup finals are conspicuous by their absence.
But only one of them, Pavel Datsyuk, is in street clothes. The other one is actually wearing skates, although compared to the way he usually plays, you’d never know it.
DETROIT - MAY 31: Sidney Crosby(notes) #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins fights for the puck against Henrik Zetterberg(notes) #40 of the Detroit Red Wings during Game Two of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals at Joe Louis Arena on May 31, 2009 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)Sidney Crosby, the face of the NHL (if you ask the NHL), the biggest star in this series (if you ask the NHL), the man who is supposed to lead the revenge call for his Penguins teammates, has been as noticeable as a chorus line member. Yes, he’s out there. But he’s not really in there. Thanks to a blanket of Detroit defenders, for the second game, Crosby — who has 28 points in the playoffs — had no goals and no assists.
This might not be terrible for Pittsburgh, if A) it had won either game or B) a kid named Justin Abdelkader, a 22-year-old who was playing in Grand Rapids when May began, didn’t have two goals in 24 hours, and wasn’t doing things fans expected Crosby to do.
One night after Abdelkader scored a ridiculous goal on a flip/catch/drop/shoot, he scored another while chasing a bouncing puck as if it were a runaway dog. He pursued, pursued and finally just swatted at it — with two defensemen in tow — and his puck flew past Marc-Andre Fleury for a 3-1 lead, the second time in as many nights.
“Sometimes you just have to throw a puck on the net and hope it goes in,” he told CBC afterward.
And all Crosby could do was watch.
Who’s flashy now?
A rough series for Sid the Kid
Abdelkader is one of those hockey stories: a guy who’s only on the roster because of an injury to someone else, and now you can’t sit him down. At his age, he appears lucky to grow the thin beard that he has, and until these finals, his biggest goal was at Michigan State. We would tell you he symbolizes the Red Wings’ incredible depth — but that would be such a familiar story.
Meanwhile, amazingly, Crosby is becoming one as well. Last year, the Mr. Everything of the NHL had a blanket thrown over him by the name of Henrik Zetterberg. You could understand Crosby’s struggles then; it was his first finals, he was only 20, the weight of the league on his shoulders.
But this time? Well. The storyline was that Crosby would not let his team be beaten. And maybe, before this is over, that will be true. He did not play badly Sunday — not by the end. “Crosby’s competing like crazy,” Mike Babcock told NBC. “So is (Evgeni) Malkin. If you’re gonna slow them down, you gotta be on top of them.”
Which is where the Wings have been. And after two games, the Pens superstar has put nothing on the board — which is where superstars are expectedly measured.
DETROIT - MAY 31: Johan Franzen(notes) #93 and Henrik Zetterberg(notes) #40 of the Detroit Red Wings collide with Sidney Crosby(notes) #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins during Game Two of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals at Joe Louis Arena on May 31, 2009 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)The weight of the world
Meanwhile, Detroit has gotten a lot from unexpected sources. How about Jonathan Ericsson, who last week was having his appendix removed — that is not a typo — scoring a tying goal? How about Valtteri Filppula, who has mostly assisted (one goal before Sunday versus 13 assists), sweeping a rebound backward the way you flick the last pile of crumbs into a dustpan to net the game-winner?
And how about Zetterberg, last seen going mano-a-mano with Malkin? It is true that with that beard, if you threw a vest on Zetterberg, he’d be one of the Amish brothers in “Witness.” But he’s playing a great series against Crosby, draping him, frustrating him, while providing valuable backup help for Chris Osgood.
This was most noticeable in the third period, when Crosby hovered over Osgood and fired, hitting the far post, seeing the puck shoot across behind Osgood and come back to Crosby ,who fired again. Osgood never saw it. Zetterberg did, diving in and keeping the puck out, tucking it under his arm like a child saved from a fire.
If you’re Pittsburgh, maybe you call that bad luck. And it’s true, the Pens have had more of that than the Wings — who were not perfect. But they are perfect on the scoreboard, they are halfway to a Cup, and there’s no pressure on one Detroit superstar to make sure he leads the way in Game 3.
Pittsburgh, right now, cannot say the same.
Wings have had luck on their side in Games 1 and 2
By MITCH ALBOM
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
http://www.freep.com/section/SPORTS
June 1, 2009
Evgeni Malkin almost got himself tossed for Tuesday’s Game 3 after starting a skirmish with Henrik Zetterberg in the closing seconds Sunday night. Considering the way this series has gone, if I were the Penguins’ coach, I’d have thrown myself in the middle of that fight and yelled, “Hit ME instead!”
DETROIT - MAY 31: Evgeni Malkin(notes) #71 of the Pittsburgh Penguins fights against Henrik Zetterberg(notes) #40 of the Detroit Red Wings during Game Two of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals at Joe Louis Arena on May 31, 2009 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)The Penguins will need every inch of Malkin — their most effective player so far — and Sidney Crosby, and Jordan Staal, and Bill Guerin, and all the rest if they want to keep this series a series, not a blowout. The thing is, they can do that. I know it’s not the most popular sentiment in Detroit, but based on what I’ve seen, it would not surprise me if Pittsburgh tied this thing up.
All it takes is a little luck.
To date, we must admit, the Red Wings have had more of that. The bouncing puck in Game 1 should have been painted red-and-white, and Justin Abdelkader’s insurance goal in Game 2 is the kind of thing you swing at and miss as often as you put in the net.
“Tonight they hit two posts,” Wings coach Mike Babcock admitted after the 3-1 victory. “Crosby hit a post. Guerin hit a post. Crosby hit a post east-west behind the net. That’s the way hockey is. … We got a good break.”
A great break, actually, because fatigue was showing. The exhaustion of two games in two nights, and three games in five (everyone forgets the Wings endured a playoff game last Wednesday as well) showed itself in the second half of each period Sunday. The Wings started strong, then seemed to tire and just hold on. I thought this would be where Pittsburgh would steal one.
Babcock thought so, too.
“In the first 10 minutes, it was all us. In the second 10 minutes, it was all them,” he said. “And when we got up, 2-1,” in the second period “we stopped playing and they took it to us for the remainder of that period.”
This is what happens when you’re going on fumes. The Wings will never admit to that (heck, they won’t even say what body part is injured; do you really think they’ll say they’re tired?), but this schedule thing was a real boulder in the road. The Wings steered around it — maybe on the wheel’s edge, but they steered around it — and the horn sounded, the crowd went nuts, the Wings marched out of Joe Louis Arena showered, bearded and ready for some sleep.
And now comes Game 3.
Where we go from here …
There are several ways to handicap the rest of this series, like several ways to keep the accounting books. One is the goaltending way. In this ledger, the Wings win handily.
Chris Osgood has been better than ever. The one goal he surrendered Sunday came off his own player. The goal he surrendered Saturday came off his own rebound — after a shot broke his stick. “I was angling over here and it broke my stick in half, and it rolled over to their side,” he explained. “So bad break.”
The same can’t be said for Marc-Andre Fleury, whose three goals on Sunday featured no funny bounces, just tough angles. Difficult, but not impossible to stop. And to win a Stanley Cup, you usually need a goalie to be impenetrable once or twice.
Osgood — with amazing highlight stops on solo rushes by Malkin and Ruslan Fedotenko — has been that so far for Detroit. Fleury has been just better than mortal. If you’re handicapping it this way, the better goaltender wins, and the Wings could have a Cup after, say, the fifth game?
But if you look at the totality of the series — the fact that once again, on Sunday night, the Wings gave up the puck far more than Pittsburgh (21 giveaways to 12), the fact that Pittsburgh outshot the Wings in Joe Louis Arena (32 to 26), the fact that Pittsburgh won more face-offs than Detroit (27 to 24) and face-offs are Detroit’s signature pride and joy — well, you have to figure this eventually will find its way onto the scoreboard.
“We’ve been able to get more goals than them,” Zetterberg said, shrugging, in the postgame news conference. That may sound trite. But in some ways, it’s the only measure of the series. You can’t say the Penguins aren’t playing hard. You can’t say they don’t swarm the Detroit net. You can’t say they didn’t do a good job getting the puck behind the Wings.
The difference was the ones that went in and the ones that didn’t.
“I think in each of the first two games, we have been able to play in the offensive zones for periods of time,” said Penguins coach Dan Bylsma. “We’ve been able to get shots, been able to outshoot a good Detroit team. But they’ve been able to get the timely goals.”
In hockey, if you keep playing hard, this has a way of evening out.
DETROIT - MAY 31: Evgeni Malkin(notes) #71 of the Pittsburgh Penguins battles for the puck against Valtteri Filppula(notes) #51 of the Detroit Red Wings in front of goaltender Chris Osgood(notes) #30 during Game Two of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals at Joe Louis Arena on May 31, 2009 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)The way to keep winning
You do have to say this: The Wings are excelling at overcoming adversity. They are still without Pavel Datsyuk — and if you ask me, they will be unless this thing goes seven games. He is a major force on their team, yet they are halfway to a Cup and he hasn’t suited up. Nicklas Lidstrom must have hurled away the Kryptonite that was rendering him mortal. Jonathan Ericsson set a new standard for appendectomy recovery by scoring a goal less than a week after his emergency operation.
And the play Detroit is getting from guys like Abdelkader, Darren Helm and Ville Leino — well, you can understand if that drives Penguins fans nuts.
The Wings have four guys (Ericsson is the other) contributing in these Stanley Cup finals who were in Grand Rapids most of the season. “Who are these guys?” the Pens fans must be saying.
We’ll find out who Pittsburgh is Tuesday night. I have long maintained the West was tougher than the East this year, and the Wings made themselves Cup favorites the moment they dispensed with Anaheim, the toughest out in the playoffs for my money.
Still, Detroit was in this same position last year and had to go to the final seconds — and breath-stealing shots by Crosby and Marian Hossa — to win in six games. And that was against a far less experienced and less mature Penguins team than this one.
The Wings need better control, fewer turnovers and continued peppering of Fleury — from all angles — to keep this thing tilted their way.
“We’ve gotten the breaks so far,” Brain Rafalski said Sunday night.
“We certainly got some good bounces,” Dan Cleary added.
It’s good to admit luck is on your side. It’s even better if it stays there. The Wings’ biggest challenge of this series will come shortly after 8 on Tuesday night. If Ozzie plays the way he has, if the Wings focus hard under the intensity of a road crowd, and if the winds of fortune do not shift direction, then this could be — on what will is bound to be a very bad week for Detroit’s auto future — a very good one for its hockey team.
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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