Red Wings-Penguins: An Allsports Mauling in the Motor City

The way Allsports sees it, there were two stories in game five for sports on the web.

The first story was the return of Pavel Datsyuk to the Detroit Red Wings lineup.

The benefits of his return were two-fold for the Red Wings. First, they got a great player back on the ice—where he assisted on two goals for the Wings, and established his great defensive presence as well.  It looked like he was never on the shelf for seven games.

But Allsports believes the biggest impact was the emotional lift it gave his teammates to have him back in the lineup. It is a credit to the Red Wings how they could survive with a player of Datsyuk’s caliber out of the playoffs for the length of time that he was and still keep on winning. Allsports misjudged Datsyuk’s worth to his team on and off the ice.

The second story is the oversized bumper pool table called Joe Louis Arena. Chris Osgood and company know the arena well—every angle and bounce of the boards. They have managed to burn Marc-Andre Fleury a few times in the series with some deft bounces to the net.

There is no better example of this than Chris Osgood’s assist for the second goal of the game. He knew the puck would come to him quickly and his angle pass off the boards to Marian Hossa caught the Penguins on a line change.

Osgood was perfect in the game while Fleury was ordinary, being pulled after five goals on 21 shots.  The Wings' power play finally came alive too, scoring three goals in the game.

The Pens have to regroup and find a win at home. Sometimes it is easier to do so after a blow out than if you play great but lose in OT.

The Pen’s will get a big game from Fleury and win at home—but they still have to solve the Joe Louis jinx to get their hands on the Cup.

“No Guts, No Glory.”—Walt Webb