Red Wings

[Sharkbait]

YOU WILL CALL HIM JIM!!! DO YOU HEAR ME MASON!!!

My name is Jim, but you can call me, .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ......................... Jim.

[Malto Marko]

My name is Jim, but you can call me, .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ......................... Jim.

........and, My name is Suh! How do you do?

[DanO]

"my name still ends with Y.... fuck growing up."
---------------------------------------It fits people. I actually like it.

[DanO]

"The magic has left.

Wings were beaten soundly.

They were out skated and seemed to be afraid to put the puck on the net.

Can't score a goal if the puck does not go on the net."
---------------------------REALLY. I expected they would lose. Come on.............four in a row against Chicago. It's been done(other years, other teams), and I was hoping it would be done again.

"No magic has left."
------------------------------------------SMACK, SMACK, SMACK,..................................across your face you heathen.

[DanO]

Chicago hasn't figured anything out. They will get out coached and outplayed next game.

Wings win 3-1.

[Malto Marko]

Letting them back in the series is a serious mistake.

They should have, but did not play that game as an elimination game.

Translation: They should have played like they were being eliminated and the series would be over.

[chemiclord]

Letting them back in the series is a serious mistake.

They should have, but did not play that game as an elimination game.

Translation: They should have played like they were being eliminated and the series would be over.

Maybe.

But I also remember three years back after San Jose jumped out to a 3-0 series lead, and in that closeout Game 4, the Wings "roared back" with a big win...

Then promptly lost Game 5 with a whimper.

[CaptainBlue]

Re: Red Wings

Letting them back in the series is a serious mistake.

They should have, but did not play that game as an elimination game.

Translation: They should have played like they were being eliminated and the series would be over.

Agreed. This is a very good Blackhawks team, not some low seeded team that has no business being in the playoffs. It makes me nervous that we allowed them to stay alive. The Wings really need to come out flying and end the series tomorrow. They need to treat it like an elimination game.

[WingsFan]

Letting them back in the series is a serious mistake.

For the Wings to win 4 in a row vs Chicago was a tall order. Chicago had not been getting the bounces, I like are chances game #6.

[CaptainBlue]

Re: Red Wings

For the Wings to win 4 in a row vs Chicago was a tall order. Chicago had not been getting the bounces, I like are chances game #6.

Yes, it was. I didn't even expect them to win this many playoff games especially against the top two teams in the Western Conference. That in itself is impressive.

[SeaRaySparty]

I didnt really expect them to win last night. However, it was somewhat concerning that they let off the gas. Was obvious early on, they were quite slow compared to the last 3 games.
Time is now, at the Joe tomorrow. Home ice is huge, get it going!

[Tony G]

For the Wings to win 4 in a row vs Chicago was a tall order. Chicago had not been getting the bounces, I like are chances game #6.

[chemiclord]

It's okay Tony. I set up us the bomb and take off every zig.

[Tony G]

John Niyo

Careless performance puts Wings in danger of stunning collapse

From The Detroit News:

Detroit -- Sometimes you get what you expect, even in the Stanley Cup playoffs, where we've all been taught in recent years to expect the unexpected.
So if you're the slightest bit surprised the Red Wings are back home for a Game 6 in the Western Conference semifinals tonight, after whiffing on their first series-clinching attempt Saturday in Chicago, then Daniel Cleary has a message for you.
"Whoever thought this was going to end in five games," he said, "is crazy."
Of course, that was easy to say — the only thing to say, really — after a 4-1 loss Saturday at the United Center. But if they're still talking about this being a long, grinding series against the Blackhawks late tonight — with furrowed brows and through clenched teeth — the Wings are setting themselves up for a stunning end to their season.
"We have to come out in desperation, just like a Game 7," defenseman Niklas Kronwall said after a team meeting Sunday at Joe Louis Arena. "Just to make sure that we do everything we can and really to be true to ourselves and give ourselves an honest chance."
Cornered 'Hawks

Honestly, that's something they didn't do Saturday, when the top-seeded Blackhawks — having lost three consecutive games for the first time all season — "were much more competitive than us, much quicker than us, and way more desperate," according to Wings coach Mike Babcock.
It started early, with the Wings appearing "tentative" and "tight," to use their own words, and it unraveled in the second period when they added "careless" to the list, among other playoff no-nos.
By Sunday, though, that was the good news, at least from Babcock's perspective.
"It's way harder on your psyche when you play well and you get thrashed," he said. "I mean, we weren't very good. Period. We skated better than we did in (a 4-1 loss in) Game 1. But it was a lot like Game 1: They were good and we were watching."
Better watch out, though. If it happens again tonight — even for a brief stretch — against a Chicago team that finally regained its focus when pushed to the brink, the Wings will find themselves skating on thin ice.
Lower-seeded teams are 27-1 all-time in this round of the Stanley Cup playoffs when grabbing a 3-1 series lead. And the Wings have won the last 11 playoff series in which they've gone up 3-1, a streak that goes back all the way to 1991 — the first of their 22 consecutive postseason berths.
So history suggests they've still got this one locked up, even after Saturday night's clunker in Chicago. In fact, in those 11 previous 3-1 scenarios, the Wings were under .500 (5-6) in Game 5, with all sorts of forgettable flops — a 6-0 shutout loss to Patrick Roy in Colorado in 1997, Jamie Langenbrunner's 70-foot OT softie on Chris Osgood in '98, even the triple-OT loss to Pittsburgh in the '08 Cup Finals. But they were 6-0 in the Game 6s that followed, never allowing a series to get to a winner-take-all seventh game.
Match game

Point is, this series shift is nothing new. Except it is for some of the Wings who are relatively new to all this playoff pressure.
"It is a learning experience," Babcock said. "Anyone who has been in the league a long time knows how hard it is to close a team out. And anyone who hasn't probably is a little surprised."
And not surprisingly, some of the playoff rookies played like it Saturday.
"Well, they weren't very good last night," Babcock said, though he wasn't fond of the way some of his veterans played, either.
"They've been good through the playoffs. Now is that (inexperience) part of it? Hindsight's great. It's a real good thing. Prior did I expect that? No. Did we all want the puck all the time? No. Why?"
Well, the coach left that last one unanswered, finishing instead with, "Let's get it fixed."
But the solution has to come from within this current group, obviously. Babcock actually seemed startled — understandably so — when asked if he had any plans to change his lineup after Saturday's loss.
"You mean put different people in?" he asked. "No chance."
He also didn't appear to be all that interested in juggling his forward lines, though he did put Datsyuk and Zetterberg together again in the third period Saturday with the Wings trying to rally from a two-goal deficit.
"We did that last night and it was no good," Babcock said, though he also admitted that might've been "because the game was over and we were not playing."
Chicago coach Joel Quenneville spent most of the past week in search of better matchups for his team, shuffling his lines more than once and eventually his defensemen, too. And he finally found something worked Saturday, putting Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane together on the top line with Patrick Sharp and getting Toews away from Henrik Zetterberg's line as well as the Wings' top blueline pairing of Kronwall and Jonathan Ericsson as much as possible.
Tonight, though, the Wings will have the last-change advantage, and it'll be interesting to see how Quenneville reacts to that.
Does he keep Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook together? Does he split up Toews and Kane? As Zetterberg said, "Sometimes you can coach a little bit too much, match a little bit too much."
Maybe so. Because if you don't match the other team's intensity — especially in situations like these — it doesn't really matter who's on the ice. It certainly didn't Saturday night.
"We played like it was the last game of our season," Seabrook said. "We got two more like that."
I expect the Wings feel differently about that, though.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
twitter.com/JohnNiyo

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2UUaaHVVr

[Malto Marko]

"We have to come out in desperation, just like a Game 7," defenseman Niklas Kronwall said after a team meeting Sunday at Joe Louis Arena. "Just to make sure that we do everything we can and really to be true to ourselves and give ourselves an honest chance."

That's what I want to hear from the players!

. "Well, they weren't very good last night," Babcock said, though he wasn't fond of the way some of his veterans played, either.
"They've been good through the playoffs. Now is that (inexperience) part of it? Hindsight's great. It's a real good thing. Prior did I expect that? No. Did we all want the puck all the time? No. Why?"
Well, the coach left that last one unanswered, finishing instead with, "Let's get it fixed."

Yup.

Because if you don't match the other team's intensity — especially in situations like these — it doesn't really matter who's on the ice. It certainly didn't Saturday night.

Yup.