Penguins-Red Wings: Game One to Detroit

Most of the hockey media has already declared the Detroit Red Wings the winners of the Cup after one game? 

Well, I am an underdog supporter—and the fat lady has to sing before the series is over!

She ain’t singing—and she's not even humming yet.

I said Pitt in Six and it is certainly still doable. Today’s game sets the stage for the series. A win by Detroit and the Pens are in trouble, a win by the Pens and Maggie (the Monkey) will be right.

So if I’m wrong—so be it.

Saturday night the shots were coming fast and furious, as the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings vied for the first tally in the net. The speed of the action was fast, intense, and exciting.  Who was going to break the ice?

Suddenly an innocent looking shot from Brad Stuart bounces off the resilient Joe Louis backboards—bounces out front—and off the leg of Marc-Andre Fleury. An unassisted goal—Stuart's second of the playoffs.

Five minutes later, Ruslan Fedotenko snatches a rebound from a shot of Evengi Malkin. Chris Osgood is not able to hang on to the puck, and Fedotenko backhands it into the net.

Later in the period on a breakaway by Malkin, the 38-year-old Osgood stalwartly stops the talented 23-year-old, and this may have been the crux of the game—and one that Evengi will not soon forget. If Malkin scores, the Pens may have been on their way to stop the dominance of the Red Wings.

The first penalty of the game was meted out to Detroit 15 minutes into the game. The Penguins gave away the puck twice on this advantage and on their next power play gave the same performance. Here could be where the discipline and experience of the Red Wings comes in to play.  

Pittsburgh then manages to hold off the Red Wings' power play with little difficulty and—if memory serves me right—there were only three penalties in the game. With 50 seconds left in the second, Johan Franzen’s backhand puts Detroit ahead 2-1. Marc-Andre Fleury had looked a little shaky up until this point of the game, and Chris Osgood has looked extremely steady and confident.

The backbreaker for the Pens, who had played an excellent road game, was when fourth-line player Justin Abdelkader snaps a shot (his first of the playoffs) over the shoulder of Fleury to give the Red Wings a 3-1 lead at 2:46 of the third.

A little controversy was played out when Sidney Crosby had questioned whether there should have been a penalty shot when Zetterberg gloved the puck on Osgood’s back, while the puck was still in play—to no avail. Fleury made a gutsy move, when he came out of the net to challenge Samuelson, and deflected the puck off his stick late in the game to keep the game close.

The weary Penguins battled to the last seconds, even with a two-goal deficit. I have often questioned why a team would pull their goalie with seconds left while down two goals.

If anyone has seen a miracle happen in this situation, I’d like to hear from them. I have only watched this game for sixty-some odd years.