Western Conference Semifinals

http://assets.espn.go.com/i/teamlogos/nhl/med/det.gif vs http://assets.espn.go.com/i/teamlogos/nhl/med/san.gif




#1 DETROIT RED WINGS (50-19-13)

The Detroit Red Wings gave their fans a tiny scare in the opening round against Calgary, but while the Western Conference's top-seeded club may have scored few style points, the Wings were still able to survive and advance.

In the first round, the Red Wings drew the Calgary Flames, a team that posted 30 of its 43 wins during the regular season at home. The home team held serve for the first five games of the series before Detroit broke through in Calgary on Sunday to end the conference quarterfinal set in six games.

Dominik Hasek, Detroit's 42-year-old goaltender, proved to be the team's greatest asset against the Flames. Hasek, winner of six Vezina and two Hart Trophies, faced only 129 shots in the six contests, but posted a 1.57 goals against average and .922 save percentage.

The Czech-born Hasek, who also has won a Stanley Cup title and Olympic gold medal, has a 57-41 lifetime record in the playoffs.

Leading the Red Wings in scoring during the set against the Flames was four- time Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom. Lidstrom punched in two goals and added six assists to lead Detroit, but he also had some rough patches in the series. The steady Swede made a pair of uncharacteristic defensive errors that led to two goals and a Game 3 win for Calgary.

One would think that Lidstrom's productive offensive series would mean that Detroit did well on the power play against the Flames, but the Red Wings only scored on 5-of-38 opportunities with the man advantage (13.2-percent). Detroit also yielded six power-play goals to Calgary on 34 shorthanded situations.

Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen were the top-scoring forwards for Detroit in the opening round, as the pair each posted five points against the Flames. Datsyuk was just signed to the longest contract in franchise history before the Calgary series, as he inked a seven-year deal with the Red Wings.

Oft-injured winger Henrik Zetterberg, who scored a team-leading 33 goals in 63 games during the regular season, played in all six tests against the Flames and notched two goals and an assist.



#5 SAN JOSE SHARKS (51-26-5)

The San Jose Sharks have been one of the most-feared teams in the NHL since acquiring centerman Joe Thornton in the early stages of the 2005-06 campaign and this year they may have what it takes to hoist Lord Stanley's Cup.

The Sharks come into this postseason as the fifth seed, an unfortunate result of being in the same division as the Anaheim Ducks, but San Jose still posted a franchise-record 107 points during the 2006-07 regular season.

Thornton, last year's Art Ross and Hart Trophy winner, was the No. 1 overall pick by Boston in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft and has blossomed into the NHL's premier playmaker. The 27-year-old led the NHL with 92 assists this season, and his 114 total points trailed only Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby for tops in the circuit. Thornton, who had 96 assists in 2005-06, joined Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux to notch 90-plus helpers in consecutive season.

It's not surprising that Thornton led the Sharks with six points, all assists, as San Jose ousted Nashville in five games during this year's conference quarterfinals. However, Thornton is not a one-man team by any stretch of the imagination.

Milan Michalek, a 22-year-old winger from the Czech Republic, benefited from playing on the top line with Thornton and notched a team-leading four goals in the series against the Predators. Fellow linemate Jonathan Cheechoo, who has scored 93 goals over the last two regular seasons, had three assists in the opening round.

With a centerman like Thornton leading the way for the Sharks, it's not a shock that teams sometimes forget about Patrick Marleau, the man in the middle on San Jose's formidable second-line.

Marleau had 78 points (32 goals, 46 assists) this season and picked up that pace a bit against the Predators, as he posted three goals and three assists in the five game. The Saskatchewan native also scored the game-winning goal late in the third period of the series-clinching Game 5 victory.

Despite the presence of Thornton and his numerous weapons on the power play, the Sharks were just 2-for-30 against Nashville on the man advantage. During the regular season, San Jose was third in the NHL with a power-play success rate of 22.4-percent.

Evgeni Nabokov had a solid first series in net for the Sharks, as he went 4-1 with a 2.39 goals against average and .902 save percentage. The 31-year-old netminder has an overall postseason record of 22-16.



MATCHUP

The Red Wings may have earned the top seed in the Western Conference, but the gap between them and the fifth-seeded Sharks is not as great as it may seem.

Detroit's 113 points led the West, but the Sharks actually finished with one more win on the season and were just six points behind the Wings in the standings.

This is the third consecutive season that the Red Wings are the conference's top seed and in 2003 they were the No. 2 team in the West. However, Detroit has failed to advance to the conference finals in each of the previous three postseasons.

Meanwhile, the Sharks are trying to get back to the conference finals for the second time in club history. They lost to Calgary in the 2004 Western Conference finals in head coach's Ron Wilson's second year in San Jose.

The Sharks won three of the four encounters with Detroit during the regular season and outscored the Red Wings, 18-9, in those meetings. San Jose posted a 9-4 victory over visiting Detroit in the last matchup between the clubs on January 4.

This will be the first playoff series between these clubs since 1995, when the Red Wings swept San Jose in the conference semifinals. The year before, the Sharks ousted Detroit from the opening round in seven games.

The Red Wings need to slow down Thornton if they want to win this series and that is not something that is easily done. San Jose will put much more pressure on Hasek than Calgary did, and the Sharks should be able to outgun Detroit.
http://www.sportsnetwork.com/default.asp?c=sportsnetwork&page=/nhl/news/ADN4075173.htm

Series Schedule

Game 1: San Jose @ Detroit, 7:30 p.m. Thursday; April 26

Game 2: San Jose @ Detroit, 3 p.m. Saturday; April 28

Game 3: Detroit @ San Jose, 10 p.m. Monday; April 30

Game 4: Detroit @ San Jose, 10 p.m. Wednesday; May 2

Game 5 (if necessary): San Jose @ Detroit, 2 p.m. Saturday; May 5

Game 6 (if necessary): Detroit @ San Jose, TBD Monday; May 7

Game 7 (if necessary): San Jose @ Detroit, TBD Wednesday; May 9

The Sharks are a damn good team. That being said, I think the way the Wings have been playing, they can beat anyone.

Not a good start for the Wings. A couple of mistakes early and the Sharks capitalize by scoring 2 quick goals.

The Wings offense came on towards the end of the 1st but they can't seem to finish.

Man, the Wings just can't seem to hold on to the puck. Lids and Schneider look especially bad.

Well, that was essentially pethetic!
Back to the team we saw in Calgary a week ago. Gadzooks completely neutralized, and Bertuzzi and Lang looking like they fired up a couple blunts every time they took a break.
Holmstrom's injury is big in this series. The Wings look like a bunch of figure skaters out there. The only thing is, Brian Boitano and Scott Hamilton might have added some toughness to this sorry effort.
Hasek kept it from being 9-0.

I am not worried yet.

Outside of the PP, SJ did not look very dangerous. And if the Wings can limit their turnovers and not take any penalties, they will be all right.

Can you add the TV schedule to this? What's with a secound round playoff game being on Versus? Fuck that shit. I couldn't even watch the #1 seed open the second round? BS

I thought this before game 1, but didn't post it, but I think the Wings are going down.

The Sharks seem to be a bad draw for them, they are a very good team.

Can you add the TV schedule to this? What's with a secound round playoff game being on Versus? Fuck that shit. I couldn't even watch the #1 seed open the second round? BS


Should have splurged that extra $10 for DirecTV.

You mean he doesn't get channel 492?

Should have splurged that extra $10 for DirecTV.

Yeah, I expected versus to be in the channel upgrade that happened when they went from top 60 to top 100 recently. Nope.

I also didn't expect the playoffs to be on a shitty channel like that either. You'd think ESPN would at least carry playoff games.

I think ESPN told the NHL that they would have to pay them for ESPN to carry the games, instead of vice versa.

Almost like an advertising buy.

Yeah, Glen, imagine a team, or, say, a university paying a network to broadcast their games.
THAT would never happen!

Less than 40 seconds into the game and the Sharks already score. [smilie=banghead.gi:

Wow.

2-0 Sharks already.

Is it time to panic yet?
2-0 San Jose

ZETTERBERG!!!!!!!!!!!!

CLEARY FOR MVP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CLEARY!!!! My remote's getting a workout going back and forth today.

DATS!!!!!!

3-2 Wings.

They deserved that one. They've been playing tough, great hockey for the last 2 periods. Big time goal.

Great win for the Wings.

Now if they could avoid turning the puck over and being down 2-0 to start the game, they should be in good shape to win this series.

Great, hard fought win. Cleary is really playing well.
I still think the Wings have some work to do. They still have a hrad time fighting through San Jose's defense, alot of shots are blocked, and they still seem a step (blade?) slow.
They scored the third goal after some real hard work, forcing San Jose into some errors that they finally cashed in.
I like the adjustment of starting to fire the puck on the net QUICKLY, and it worked in the third period.
Betruzzi seems lost in this series. I'm not sure they need him to win it, but they need him not to fuck it up.
I think Hasek is really playing well, and has kept the Wings from getting slaughtered in these two games.
Nice to see Gadzooks get the winning goal, too, but I'm still worried that he seems lost out there much of the time.

To go with an old joke here, Hasek spends more time on his back than Jenna Jameson.

OUCH!
Can we end the Robert Lang-Todd Bertuzzi experiment now?
Gadzooks doesn't stand a chance out there. I see him, I think Slava Kozlov, only with even LESS playoff savvy. His game winner the other night didn't seem to work any magic with him, give him a boost. He really looks lost out there.
The Red Wings need a miracle in this series. If San Jose plays fairly mistake free, the Wings have nothing to offer.

How about we just end the Lang experiment? The guy is worthless %90 of the time. He doesn't play defense and only shows up on offense for 1-2 shifts a night. I'd rather see Filpula get his ice time.

We played like the old Wings last night. Get a lead and instead of attacking, sit on it. A lucky goal goes in for the Sharks and we're fucked. How sad was their effort last night. The Wings dominated the first period, then looked like shit for the last period and a half.

At least holmstrom will be back next game. Any world on Lebda?

Awesome comeback win last night... sometimes we need some luck.

Awesome comeback win last night... sometimes we need some luck.

Too bad the NHL is screwing us over and I couldn't watch it.

Too bad the NHL is screwing us over and I couldn't watch it.

Which is what made the win all the more rewarding last night. I fell asleep when it was 2-1, so I didn't get to see the third period or overtime, but the Wings were being outplayed in the first and much of the second...

MoTown:
I had to go to bed myself, but saw Homstrom's goal with 4 seconds left in the second period.
Any question this guy brings alot of heart and soul to the Wings? Huge goal, obviously.
At least Lang contributed.
About the middle of the second period the Wings kind of took the game over, something clicked and they really controlled the action for much of the last half of that period.
Hasek was terrific, and again kept San Jose from blowing it open. The Wings, at the point where I tuned out, were still turning the puck over WAY too much, especially in neutral ice, and San Jose still has too many good scoring chances resulting from that.
I'd like to see a few more passes and shots that aren't attempted by going through the kneecaps of San Jose players. The human body, near as I can tell, doesn't have a hole in the chest or the thigh to let hockey pucks go through it.

Anyone watching this? I turned it on at 1 - 1 and just watched Nabokov gift wrap a 2 - 1 lead.

Wings win 4 - 1 !!!!!!! Now we are up 3-2 in the series. The only bad thing is that Schneider (sp?) got hurt with what was called an arm injury. I hope it's nothing serious.

That was a costly victory.

Schneider is out for the rest of the playoffs with a broken wrist. With Lebda and Kronwall already out, our defense is a little thin and this doesn't help. I would guess that one of Meech or Ericsson will be in the lineup for Game 6, unless Lebda is ready to go.

With Schneider out we might be in trouble. That's our #2 defenseman and our best defensive scorer. I know that Kronwall originally was supposed to be back at some point during the playoffs - any chance of that happening?

I doubt it. The earliest Kronwall could come back is probably the WCF, if the Wings advance that far. I wouldn't count on him playing again this season though.

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/1285/picture3wi1.png

When you're feeling low, beat on a minority. WTF?????

Kronwell has a chance for the Finals, that's it. Lebda will be back tonight maybe.

I hope they are not playing Lebda because they are reluctant to use another rookie on the blue line.

They said he was a game time this morning. Don't know if he's in or out yet.

SAMMY!!!

1-0 Wings.

Holy shit.

Lidstrom!

SAMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again.

I got that magical feel slowly coming into the the thread soon.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/Bandwagon.jpg

Bring on the Ducks!