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Stanley Cup Finals: A look at the Detroit Red Wings (again)
by Tony on 05/28/09 at 11:29 AM ET
Comments (10)
Well, here we go again.
It’s hockey’s version of the Big Red Machine. But instead of Pete Rose, Tony Perez and Davey Concepcion, it’s Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and yes, it’s now Marian Hossa.
The Penguins will surely utilize the experience gained in last year’s Finals loss to the Wings. In retrospect, early in the series the Penguins spent more time gawking at the vaunted Red Wings rather than trying to defeat them. Two straight shutouts to start the Finals, only generating 19 and 22 shots respectively. It put the Penguins in a hole from which they could never fully recover.
But it’s a new year, the Penguins are a new team, some say a better team. Question is, are they good enough to hoist the Cup ?? Let’s take a look.
My half-assed keys to the series:
- Minimize the amount of Wings in Marc-Andre Fleury’s grill. Tomas Holmstrom and Johan Franzen should set up cots in that damn crease, for as much their big asses are in there. But while those two are the biggest culprits, it’s not just them. Just look at the winning goal from Game Five vs. Chicago, scored by sparkplug Darren Helm. If the Penguins defense can continue to keep the opposition to the perimeter, rather than those behemoths breathing down his neck, it gives them a much better chance of winning this series.
- Both goaltenders. Marc-Andre Fleury cannot be merely an average goaltender in this series. While many people will remember his 55 saves in the triple overtime Game Five in last year’s Finals, to be fair you also have to remember the painfully soft backhander that he allowed to Jiri Hudler in the third period of Game Four that ended up being the game-winner in a 2-1 Wings win. That said, while Fleury certainly hasn’t been outstanding (12-5, 2.62 GAA, .906 save pct.), it’s difficult to rattle off hardly any goals in the first three rounds that can honestly be considered soft. So while he obviously has to keep the soft goals to an absolute minimum, he has to raise those GAA and save percentages as well.
On the other side of the ice, Chris Osgood sure gets a lot of heat when those around the NHL talk about him, but in the playoffs, he’s looks fine to me. All he’s done is go 12-4, with a 2.06 GAA and a .925 save pct. Perhaps you might want to compare those numbers to Fleury’s above. What’s to complain about ?? That said, Osgood has had his moments, especially during the regular season, when those numbers didn’t look so good. If you’re the Penguins, the objective needs to be to pepper Osgood with shots, rather than get cutesy with the puck looking for the perfect pass.
- Slow down the Detroit transition game. This was the main facet of Detroit’s game that impressed me the most last year. As soon as one of the Wings got possession of the puck, it was out of the zone, and quick. It’s not easy to stop that, but you can slow it down by not having the defensemen constantly backing up on their heels. But it’s that excellent transition game that quite often results in odd-man rushes.
- Take advantage of the Wings’ penalty kill. For all the assets the Wings possess, it’s rather surprising that the Wings have not had the greatest penalty killing units. Their PK only has a 73.7% success rate, near the bottom of all playoffs teams. Up until Game Five, in which the Wings killed all three Blackhawks’ powerplays, the Wings had given up a powerplay goal in 13 straight games. Conversely, the Penguins’ powerplay has been slowly but surely improving, currently successful at a 19.3% clip. I don’t know about you, but I’d take at least one powerplay goal per game in this series any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
- Miscellaneous. I’m not going to get into shutting down any particular scorer, obviously if someone on either team gets extremely hot, it’s going to be a big problem for their opposition. But it should also be noted that both team’s 3rd and 4th lines have been doing a good job at chipping in with the scoring. A couple other interesting items to me is whether the Penguins will target any particular Wings’ defenseman (i.e. Rafalski ??) and how the Pens will use Rob Scuderi, who has become without a doubt the Pens’ shutdown defenseman.
It should be a great series. I just do not see the Penguins wilting like they did last year early on. There’s no more “awe factor”. After the first two games, every game after that was close. They beat the Wings in Detroit earlier in the regular season as well. If the Penguins can split in Detroit, it can bode well for a possible Cup championship for the Penguins.
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Comments
The Pens surely have alot of weapons, and tools such as Rob Scuderi, however, the Wings have only gotten better than last year even (if it was possible) w/ the additions of Hossa, Ericsson, Leino, and the maturation of role players and gifted scorers Hudler, Samuelson, Helm, not to mention the clutch scoring of Franzen and Dan Cleary and the resurgence of Chris Osgood. The major contributions of perennial all stars (Datsyuk, Z, Lidstrom, Rafalski, Holmstrom) haven’t even been necessary up to this point and they wiped the floor w/ a young Chicago team in 5 games. Yes, 3 were OT wins, but there is just an inevitability about this team that I haven’t seen in any other teams, where you just watch them play and KNOW they are going to win. It was evident against Anaheim as well. I hope there is a miracle and the hockey gods will shine favorably on the Pens and allow them pull it off...but I’m beginning to think even the hockey gods can’t beat Detroit.
Posted by miah from Portland, OR on 05/28/09 at 11:24 AM ET
Fleury has given up about 5 goals this postseason with his stickhandling alone. I’d say he’s been good for about 1 marshmallow goal every other game. Still, he seems to be handling the mental side of the game a bit better. He used to go to pieces after giving up a soft goal or an early goal, but seems to be hanging tough now.
Let’s hope the good M-A shows up!
Posted by catz27 on 05/28/09 at 11:36 AM ET
See, this is a good, even-handed analysis. Even as a Pens fan, you acknowledge the strengths of both sides and the closeness of the match up.
I think the biggest keys to the series are the defenses. First, Detroit’s D needs to get healthy. Ericsson will be back for game one, but Lidstrom needs to be as well. Detroit won two games without him—they won’t win another one with him on the sidelines, let’s be realistic. If they get healthy, they have, by far, the best and deepest D the Pens have seen all playoff. The Red Wings are DOMINATING 5-on-5 play right now, and the Pens are getting a lot of Malkin’s points from the PP. So, Detroit’s D, if Lidstrom is healthy, is a challenge the Pens have nothing to compare to… other than last year’s final.
Second, the Pens’ D has to be better. Call me an ass, but it’s hard to believe the likes of Mark Eaton and Rob Scuderi are going to be difference-makers against the likes of Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Hossa, Filppula, Cleary, Helm, and Samuelsson.
We just watched that group of forwards get under the skin of the clear best defense in hockey, in the Anaheim Ducks. We watched them embarrass Brian Campbell, and humble Seabrook and Keith. If you can make Chris Pronger, Scott Neidermayer, James Wisniewski, Ryan Whitney, and Francois Beauchemin go crazy, you can take down any D. Sergei Gonchar is going to have to do his damnedest to look more like Nick Lidstrom, and less like Brian Campbell.
I hate to simplify it so much, because I think the Pens have a damn good team, but it really boils down to Lidstrom and Datsyuk. That would be like having Crosby, Gonchar, and one of Orpik/Eaton/Scuderi out of the lineup. It’s just damn near impossible to overcome that. If Lidstrom and Datsyuk are able to play each game in this series, I think the Red Wings are favorites again, admittedly by a very small margin.
Posted by Nathan from Jonny Ericsson's ice cream truck on 05/28/09 at 11:43 AM ET
You guys can poo-poo Scuderi all you want, all I know is that Richards, then Ovechkin, then Staal didn’t do squat in their respective series.... Common demoninator ?? Scuderi....
I fully acknowledge the Wings have many more weapons, but you gotta give Scuderi his props....
Posted by Tony F from Virginia Beach, VA on 05/28/09 at 12:03 PM ET
I think one of the keys for the Wings has to be the PK. It has been horrid at times but also, killed two 5 on 3s in the Hawks series and looked much better in Game 5. The Wings have to stay out of the box against the Pens PP.
Nice analysis.
Posted by hockeychic from Denver, CO on 05/28/09 at 12:12 PM ET
I fully acknowledge the Wings have many more weapons, but you gotta give Scuderi his props....
Hey, fair play, Tony. I think your analysis is very good, wasn’t getting on your case or anything.
My counter-point was that as well as Scuderi has done, we’ve seen the Wings offensive depth wear out two future HOFers in Anaheim, along with a better compliment of defenders (Whitney, Wisniewski, and Beauchemin) than what the Pens have. Then, we saw the Wings utterly embarrass a Chicago D that, talent-wise, is very similar to the Pens, if not BETTER. The difference is the Pens D has a lot of playoff savvy the Hawks D did not.
Posted by Nathan from Jonny Ericsson's ice cream truck on 05/28/09 at 01:08 PM ET
Great analysis Tony! One other aspect that wasn’t mentioned was team shot blocking. That’s been a huge factor for the Penguins thus far. Wings seem to make a living crowding the net, and taking a deep shot from the point into the open corner. (Damn Holstrom for being so good at leaving something open for Wing’s D to shoot at). That said, the Penguins as a team have been great at stopping those shots from getting to Fleury. Should be a great series!
Posted by penguinsfan on 05/28/09 at 01:26 PM ET
You guys can poo-poo Scuderi all you want, all I know is that Richards, then Ovechkin, then Staal didn’t do squat in their respective series.... Common demoninator ?? Scuderi....
Why is Scuderi the common denominator, out of the rest of the Pens roster?
And as far as ‘not doing squat’ goes, Richards had 5 points in 6 games and Ovechkin had 8 goals and 6 assists for 14 points in 7 games. Staal was the only guy I think you could say was really silenced… and the whole Canes team was total garbage in the ECFs.
I think you’re on to something when you mention the dmen, though. IMO that’s whgere this series is going to be decided. Unless the Pens get a very high level of play out of their blueliners, this series could get out of hand pretty quickly.
Detroit’s already faced top 4s or Pronger-Neidermayer-Whitney-Beauchamin and Seabrook-Keith-Campbell-Barker, and I think both of those groups are much superior two-way collectives than Pittsburghs. The only guy out of those 8 who isn’t a solid puck-mover is Beauchamin, really.
I don’t get the impression that Pittsburgh has that kind of offensive depth on their blue line. They may have a couple guys who are solid defense first players, but losing Whitney back there has reduced their dangerous puck-handlers to just Gonchar.
That, IMO, will make them especially vulnerable to Detroit’s forecheck, and seems like something which is really going to impact the Pens ability to get their offense rolling.
I think if Pittsburgh doesn’t take advantage of the, um, ‘fortuitous’ scheduling change and take both of the first two games in the series, they’ll be in for trouble.
Posted by HockeyinHD on 05/28/09 at 01:53 PM ET
I think you’re underestimating their D corps, but that’s OK, everyone else does…
OK, lemme tackle those one by one…
Richards - 1 goal, 4 assists, and that one goal was on the PP while Scuderi wasn’t on him…
Ovechkin - Here’s a snippet from an earlier post of mine during the Caps series, “Ovechkin has seven goals so far in the five games of this series. Scuderi has actually been on the ice for four of those goals, but Ovechkin has not scored when Scuderi has actually been defending him.”
Staal - 1 goal, where Scuderi was on the ice, but Gill had him on this play…
Facts are facts.... In these playoffs, when Scuderi is guarding you, you haven’t scored…
In terms of offensive defensemen, you’re overlooking a few… In fact, Whitney was the WORST offensive defensemen the Pens had.... Besides Gonchar, Kris Letang is a rising star among offensive Dmen in this league… Mark Eaton has 4 goals this playoffs, and Philippe Boucher, while aging, still has a booming slapper....
Posted by Tony F from Virginia Beach, VA on 05/28/09 at 02:14 PM ET
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Welcome to The Confluence, a Pittsburgh Penguins blog since 2006. Originally at Blogspot, then at MVN, The Confluence has over 1000 articles reporting Penguins news as well as jumping on my soapbox to opine constructive Penguins criticism. My posts are regularly linked by hockey websites such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Empty Netters and Yahoo!’s Puck Daddy, and I’ve done guest blogger spots on such websites as the New York Times. I invite you to spend a little time and peruse the archives at all of the sites for some of my better work. I am a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer, but don’t confuse me with my fellow Chief at A2Y.
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You know, I was actually starting to get worried about this series… until I read this:
Then a feeling of deep calm settled over me.
Posted by HockeyinHD on 05/28/09 at 11:04 AM ET