Another Red Wings first round playoff failure is forcing me to put the Tigers impressive 13-2 drubbing of the Indians on the back burner for this entry. Believe me, I'd rather discuss Miguel Cabrera's big night at the plate and how the Indians hitters made Armondo Galarraga look like Nolan Ryan. But no, the Red Wings had to go and blow a 2-0 series lead to the 8th seeded Predators.
Let's see, something about a one seed losing to an eight seed sounds vaguely familiar. It's because it happened two years ago. The Wings won the President's Trophy and got eliminated in the first round by the Edmonton Oilers. It was Steve Yzerman's last season wearing the winged wheel. The Oilers did go on to the Stanley Cup Finals that season, so they did catch fire at the right time, but c'mon! Is this going to happen to the Wings again?
Four times in this series with Nashville the Predators have scored two goals with barely two minutes passing on the game-clock. Last night it happened in the first period. Nashville scored a pair of goals :32 seconds apart. That coming on the heals of what happened in the third period of game 3 when the Preds tallied two goals in 9 seconds, giving them the lead and the win.
It's not like the Wings aren't getting chances. They had 39 shots on Dan Ellis in Game 4. This was Ellis' fourth playoff game of his career and he stood tall. Meantime, his counterpart Dominik Hasek, a 6-time Vezina Trophy winner, is allowing long slap-shot goals, and now may find himself being replaced between the pipes by Chris Osgood indefinitely.
The Predators are scoring in flurries while the Red Wings seem to be too patient and are waiting for somebody else to be the hero. Pavel Datsyuk has had a great playoff series, but where is everybody else? Henrik Zetterberg needs to create more chances. Nicklas Lidstrom needs to shoot more instead of giving it up. Defensively, the Wings need to be more physical. Guys like Brad Stuart, Nick Kronwall, Darren McCarty and event the old man Chris Chelios need to throw their bodys around more. Rub some dudes into the boards. Make the Preds have fear when the pucks deep in the Red Wings end.
Nashville may be the 8th seed in these playoffs but the Preds were the NHL's third best team, during the regular season, when leading games after two periods. They're not a bad team, folks, and now they find themselves in a series with the mighty Red Wings.
Is it time to worry? Yes! We've seen this bad movie play out before. Should Mike Babcock replace Hasek with Osgood in game 5? Yes! Osgood had a great regular season for the Wings and, let's face it, Hasek will NOT be back in Detroit next season. Osgood was inked to the big contract, during the season, and the Wings need to elevate Jimmy Howard from the Griffins anyways to see if he has the chops. If Babcock decides to go with Osgood, then he has to stay committed to him the rest of the way - all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, should Detroit advance that far. The playoffs is no time to play "musical goalie".
Wings have won the President's Trophy 6 times in the last 13 years. They have 3 Cups during that span, but in my humble opinion they should have won more. Red Wings are a great regular season team but they just can't seem to beat one team in a 7-game series. They always struggle and live on the edge.
Nashville has guaranteed itself a game 6 back in music city, so the Wings must win game 5. If not, we could be seeing the '94 Sharks and the '06 Oilers playing out before our eyes all over again.