Wrapped Around Your Finger: Wings and Pens in Game Five Tonight

The Detroit Red Wings can wrap things up tonight as the Penguins invade “The Joe” for Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals. The Wings hold a 3-1 advantage and will be looking to close out the series and hoist the Cup in front of their rabid, octopus-loving fanbase.

I didn’t get to watch game four until last night, but it seemed like the Red Wings were back to controlling the puck for large portions of the game, just like they did in games one and two.

Pittsburgh Coach Michel Therrien can’t complain too much about the officiating anymore as his team had plenty of powerplay opportunties, but couldn’t take advantage of them when it really mattered. Missing out on that 5 on 3 in the third period just about killed his team.

Kudos to Henrik Zetterberg who played a great overall game and who also refused to take the bait when asked about Sidney Crosby’s remarks to him after the contest was over. “I couldn’t hear him, but I think he was frustrated” was all the classy Swede would say.

According to NBC’s “on-ice” analyst Pierre McGuire, there was plenty of trash-talking going on almost all game long, especially between Sidney Crosby and Kris Draper. Hello? What is this, a glorified rec league? It’s pretty bush-league when supposedly the best player in hockey resorts to lowering himself to trash-talking while playing for Lord Stanley’s Hardware. Draper has always been a loonie and I would expect nothing less from him, but Crosby?

You would think that most of these guys would be mature enough to let their actions speak louder than their words, especially in the Stanley Cup Finals, but apparently that is not the case. I’m not sure I would be in the mood to trash-talk any more if my team was on the verge of being eliminated, but maybe that’s just me. We’ll see what happens tonight.

Speaking of Zetterberg, think he might be due for a raise? During the last three years he has scored 115 goals and has 130 assists. This past year he scored 43 goals in the regular season and has 11 more in the post-season. Not too shabby at 2.7 million.

Ken Holland better get out his checkbook this summer.

While McGuire was railing about Crosby not getting enough playing time, I was thinking that Jordan Staal should be out on the ice more as well. It seems like the kid has looked good when he’s been out there. He just needs better line-mates and more playing time. Saturday night he only played 17 minutes, and several of those were spent killing penalties.

Maybe Staal should take some of Malkin’s time?

Hopefully, there will be better television ratings for the NHL tonight. The competition for Game 5 will be “The Bachelorette” on ABC, drama reruns on Fox, and sitcom reruns on CBS.

Perhaps most people aren’t watching TV anymore?

Regardless, The Cup will be in the house tonight. Game time at 8 Eastern.