Puck Drop Note: This article appears in its original form as found on the Los Angeles Times website. Source information can be found at the bottom of article.
You want to get off to that good first start, and Detroit is a much different team when it scores first. The Red Wings play so well defensively, which you saw Monday night in their 3-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals.
The Red Wings are primarily talked about as being this great offensive dynamo, and what I think most people don't understand is that they're mostly a defensive team.
They're very, very sound. They have five men on the puck at all times, and they just play very disciplined on defense. From that, they're able to play that puck-possession game, and they have a tremendous amount of speed.
They are relentless with their pressure. They're maybe the one team in the league that sticks to their game plan ever single night. Very few times are you able to knock them off their game, and I think we did that a couple of times this year.
They're really good at taking your time away, and their goal is to clog up the neutral zone and not allow the skill players any room to get up ice and make plays. [Sidney] Crosby, [Evgeni] Malkin, [Jordan] Staal, they're not allowing these guys to make plays.
Having said that, Pittsburgh doesn't want to do the little things. They don't want to dump the puck in. They want to be a puck-possession team as they have been in the first three rounds, but it's tough to do that in Detroit.
It's a very different configuration, that building, with the narrow corners. Everything comes quick, and it's difficult to adapt and adjust to that. It'll be interesting to see how Pittsburgh rebounds.
The first goal, I couldn't tell from the angle if [Pittsburgh defenseman] Hal Gill was screening [Marc-Andre] Fleury. That's a big body, so I don't know if he was in the way as well. But that puck being shot from the boards, [Fleury's] got to make that save. Screen or no screen, that's a save a goalie has to make in the finals.
On the second goal, [Tomas] Holmstrom just got in his regular spot and does what he does. The third goal was just a great individual effort by [Valtteri] Filppula.
The goalie has got to know he can't cut back because the defenseman is there. It's hard for me to critique a goalie. I know Jiggy [Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere] tells us how he wants us and where he wants us to leave guys for him. You have to have that rapport and communication with your defensemen. You have to know where he wants you to leave guys alone and where he wants you to battle guys.
I'm not a coach. But I think with the way Detroit is playing defensively, I don't know if the Penguins want to get more balance, but they may want to stack the top two lines. Crosby played 6 minutes 30 seconds in the second period. If I'm the coach, I probably want to play Crosby, Malkin and [Marian] Hossa and get them out there for maybe 22, 23 or 24 minutes.
If I'm going to lose, I'm going to lose with my big guns playing. If those guys are playing 23, 24 minutes at a high tempo, you're going to throw Detroit out of rhythm and force them out of their tempo a bit. Maybe you'll throw off their lines by doing that.
A lot of those guys have never been on this type of stage and it can become very overwhelming at times. They have such a young team and some of the veterans they have haven't been there before.
It's hard to put this all into words. A guy like Crosby, there's a tremendous amount of pressure on him. He's brought his team to the finals, but they're expecting more. Malkin's the same thing, and he's a Hart Trophy finalist. They're expecting this offensive powerhouse to run up a big number of goals, but Detroit is a defensive team.
I think people saw the Red Wings and Penguins and were thinking that they were going to see a run-and-gun type of game. People may think that, but how Detroit gets goals is by being very sound on defense. They get teams taking chances earlier in the game and then they're able to go back the other way on three-on-two and two-on-one rushes because they have a lot of speed.
The reason why Detroit is up 2-0 is because they have a very mobile defense that makes good sound decisions all the time with the puck. They've got centers that want the puck and can make plays. On top of that, Ozzy [Detroit goalie Chris Osgood] is playing the way he did in the first half of the season where he's dialed in. The three, four or five tough saves he has to make, he's making them.
Obviously the start is going to be a big factor in Game 3, and the Penguins will be back in their arena. The crowd will be going crazy so maybe they'll feed off that. But the biggest thing is having a short memory and not really thinking about the first two games.
Obviously you have to think about your opponent, and so they'll have to think about how to get through the neutral zone better and get better dumps of the puck [in the Detroit zone]. That's something they've got to make an adjustment at. Whether getting the last line change is going to help, we'll see.
The biggest thing in the last five minutes is you're trying to send a message and show that you came to play. If they're going to hit Crosby and Malkin, then we're going to give you an answer. But in Game 3, they've got to play as disciplined a game as they have all season.
Chris Pronger has been a defenseman for the Ducks for the last two seasons and served as their captain in 2007-08. He is a former Hart Trophy winner as the NHL's most valuable player and helped lead the Ducks to the Stanley Cup in 2007.
Source: "Key for the Red Wings is their fast start" By Chris Pronger, Special to The Times
May 27, 2008
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