WINGS FIRE BLANKS
Speed not enough to counter the Bruins’ brick wall.
The deeper this Stanley Cup playoff series between the Detroit Red Wings and Boston Bruins progresses, the more the Game 2 encounter between Bruins captain Zdeno Chara and Detroit defenceman Brendan Smith is coming to symbolize the set in the eyes of many.
The image of a bemused Chara towering over Smith as the latter pondered whether or not to engage the mammoth Boston defender in fisticuffs painted an image of a schoolyard bully taking the little kid’s lunch money, and if that’s how you want to portray it, fine, but you’re completely missing the point.
Boston’s dominance of Detroit covers so many more levels than a simple physical edge.
In fact, Bruins coach Claude Julien, the former Windsor Spitfires defenceman, took offence to the notion that his team was nothing more than a bunch of roughnecks.
“Our skating game was good,” said Julien, whose team skated to a 3-0 victory and a 2-1 edge in this best-of-seven series Tuesday at Joe Louis Arena.
“We were closing gaps and we were being physical. You can’t be physical if you can’t skate.”
Quite simply, the Bruins are winning because they are the best team in this series, the best team in the Eastern Conference, perhaps even the best team in the NHL, and they are playing with a desire to fill those roles.
“Those things happened because we were skating well,” said Julien, whose club won the Presidents’ Trophy as the NHL’s best regular-season team.
When this set got underway, the Wings knew their only hope rested on their ability to utilize their overall team quickness to create space and scoring chances against the bigger Bruins.
The Wings deployed that gameplan to perfection for a 1-0 series-opening victory, but it’s been all Boston since.
“I thought we had a good Game 1,” Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. “They’ve responded since and we’ve had no push back.”
Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard, flawless in Game 1, has given up a couple of softies the last two contests.
In Game 2, his puckhandling error led to Justin Florek’s opening goal and Tuesday, Howard allowed a long wrist shot from Boston defenceman Dougie Hamilton to elude him on the short side.
“That goal can’t go in,” Babcock said.
At the other end of the rink, Vezina Trophy favourite Tuukka Rask isn’t giving the Wings anything other than grief.
“It’s really good team defence,” said Rask, who’s allowed two goals in three games. “I didn’t think we gave them that many scoring chances.”
“It’s easier to control your rebounds when you see the puck and the shots are coming off the wing.”
It would certainly help Detroit’s cause if a couple of their goal scorers did just that. Forwards Johan Franzen (one goal in 21 games) and Gustav Nyquist (no goals in nine games) aren’t exactly burning out red lamps.
The Wings got rattled early by Boston’s forechecking pressure and made two key errors – a too-many-men penalty that led to Hamilton’s power-play goal and a horrific line change that resulted in a two-man break finished off by Jordan Caron.
Patrice Bergeron’s emptynetter completed the scoring.
“That first period we knew in their building they’d have energy and we wanted to match that intensity and push them back,” Hamilton said.
“I thought we did really well at that and getting on them early and taking the momentum away.”
The Bruins are imposing their will upon the Wings.
In the last two games, the Wings have been totally stifled by Boston and as they head to Game 4 on home ice Thursday, they must accept this reality:
It’s time to decide what they want to do – step up, or step aside.