Winning Ugly

The Western Conference Finals are off to a good start… Helene St. James writes:

The Red Wings paid as hard a physical price as they have all playoffs as they started the Western Conference finals.

From Chris Chelios to Henrik Zetterberg to Pavel Datsyuk, the Ducks took aim and hit, almost as often as they threw pucks on Dominik Hasek and crashed around his crease.

It took a superb effort from Detroit's penalty killers and two power-play goals to beat the Ducks, 2-1, Friday night at Joe Louis Arena in Game 1 of the best-of-seven series. Game 2 is Sunday.

[…]

What really killed the Ducks was Detroit's penalty killing. From nullifying nearly two minutes when the Ducks were up two men to a 4-on-3, the Wings held Anaheim 0-for-7.

Special teams, in other words. Detroit’s were superlative…especially the penalty-killers…while Anaheim’s weren’t. In a strange turn of events—for the Wings, anyway—the Ducks out-shot Detroit, 32-19. But the Hockey Gods smiled upon Detroit last night, nullifying Anaheim’s shot advantage by allowing Detroit to score one seriously fluky goal and another that got lost-in-the-traffic in front of Anaheim goalie J.S. Giguere and trickled across the Ducks’ goal line. Both were power-play goals. The first Detroit goal was as ugly as I’ve ever seen, and the second wasn’t much prettier. Barring those two bits of luck the score could have been Ducks 1, Red Wings 0. But I’ll take it, as anyone would. Here’s Freep columnist Drew Sharp on “ugly:”

Ugly was unacceptable until fans discovered something even more grotesque: not advancing beyond the second round of the playoffs. That had happened each year since 2002 because the Wings were ill prepared to wallow in the muck that's often demanded during a long playoff run.

There's nothing pretty about Nicklas Lidstrom admitting that he doesn't know how his game-winning blast from inside the blue line got through Anaheim goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere after hitting Tomas Holmstrom and getting an inadvertent assist from an Anaheim stick. And there certainly was nothing artistic about Henrik Zetterberg pretty much banking a shot off a sliding Duck defender's leg for another goal like he was playing a game of eight-ball pool.

But it should be understood now that this is how it must be for these Wings. They no longer play as though they're posing for a hockey magazine centerfold. They'll happily wear the smudge that comes from doing the necessary dirty work.

I’ll take ugly if it means being in the third round and on their way to The Cup over a “pretty” first-round loss…any time. Every time.

Anaheim brought their vaunted physical game into The Joe last night but it didn’t seem to do much good, in the sense that the Wings were not intimidated. And the Wings gave as good as they got. The hits were even at 22 apiece, and Detroit’s Kirk Maltby was the leading hitter on either side, with 6. These Wings are physical, too.

While Detroit’s penalty killers were superb, they need much less work. Detroit took 11 penalties last night. Four of Detroit’s infractions were offset by simultaneous Anaheim penalties—resulting in more 4-on-4 play than I’ve seen in a playoff game in a long time—that’s way, way too many penalties to be successful against a team like the Ducks.

Tomorrow’s game will be most interesting!

At the end of an ESPN article that mostly says “So, what?” about the Ducks’ loss last night, Scott Burnside asks…

... Just wondering why it is that in Buffalo, another border community, the Sabres acknowledge their cross-border neighbors by singing "O Canada" at every playoff game regardless of whether the Sabres are playing a Canadian opponent. In Detroit? Only the U.S. anthem is played.

Maybe it’s because the games are played in Detroit, and not Windsor? I know that says nothing about why the Sabres’ management feels the need to play/sing “O Canada.” I don’t be believe I’ve ever heard “The Star-Spangled Banner” played at a Canadian rink when two Canadian teams were going at it in the play-offs, but then again, there aren’t any Canadian teams in “border” towns…unless you count the Leafs, or the Canucks. That’s a stretch for the Leafs, coz (a) Toronto isn’t in the play-offs (this year) and (b) Toronto is a long way from the border (relatively speaking). (Vancouver didn’t play a Canadian team this year either…and I don’t recall hearing our national anthem played there or in Calgary, for that matter, when the teams met in the play-offs in 2004.) And Montreal? The Canadians are lucky “O Canada” is played at the beginning of games there…let alone “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Just sayin’.

And now…it’s a beautiful day with light winds. I’m gonna go for a quick ride out to the base…and perhaps beyond.

Photo: The Old Man was good last night, stopping 31 of 32 shots.
Photo credit: Detroit Free Press