Cleary Leads Wings To 1-0 Series Lead Against Blackhawks

On Sunday afternoon, the difference was Cleary.

The same man who scored the series-winning goal against Anaheim was responsible for two tallies against the Blackhawks.

An ugly, ugly goal that never should have been got the game going for Chicago in the first period, but that brief 1-0 lead was the only one the Blackhawks would taste against the Red Wings.

Detroit tied the game at 1-1 on a twisted wrister from Dan Cleary, went up 2-1 on a Johan Franzen goal, and eventually took game one by a 5-2 margin. Dan Cleary was about two feet wide of a hat trick, but he led Detroit with two goals. Mikael Samuelsson got the game-winner in the third period, Cleary scored the fourth goal, and Henrik Zetterberg scored an empty-netter to seal it with less than a minute remaining.

So after an incredibly tough series against the Anaheim Ducks, it looks like Detroit might have an easier go of it against Chicago. The Blackhawks fought the entire time, sure, but the fast-paced game always looked like it was in Detroit’s hands. The Red Wings, as usual, outshot their opponent, 43 to 32, and Chris Osgood looked pretty good apart from that first goal.

The youngsters on the Chicago side were looking forward to their first taste of the conference finals, but Detroit’s veterans pretty much shut them out.

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“We know that we got a lesson today and we’ve got to be better,” Hawks coach Joel Quenneville told ESPN.com’s Pierre LeBrune.

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That lesson? Don’t give Detroit a big lead. You won’t come back.

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“I know we’ve been able to come back quite a bit so far, but the truth is that when you give a team like the Red Wings a couple-of-goals lead, it’s probably not going to happen very often if at all,” Chicago’s Kris Versteeg told CBSSports.com.

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Talk now is that the Red Wings will  close this series out in four or five games. The common theory is that Chicago is too young and inexperienced to beat a club like Detroit. But Chicago has already taken down a much more experienced Calgary team and a much more experience Vancouver team, and in the latter series, the Blackhawks lost the first game. It’s certainly not over for the boys from the Second City.

On top of that, Chicago’s goalie, Nikolai Khabibulin looked very bad. Cleary’s first goal may have been a tad soft, but the Blackhawks’ media outlets think he needs to up his game. And he is certainly capable of doing that. Khabibulin led the Tampa Bay Lightning to a Stanley Cup in 2004. Check out this passage from the Chicago Sun-Times:

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It’s time to add mortar to the “Bulin Wall” in the form of better puck possession, better defense and fewer turnovers. If the Hawks do all that, and Khabibulin stops virtually everything else, they have a chance in this series. If not, this will not be the experience the Hawks were hoping for.

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Detroit broke the wall down in Game 1. They might not be so luck in Game 2. Now is not the time for Detroit to listen to the media and get cocky about their chances in the series.

Game 2 is Tuesday night in Detroit.