Over the last few seasons, enthusiasm for the Red Wings seems to have waned in Detroit. There have been noticeable pockets of empty seats at Joe Louis throughout the playoffs, and these days the team is sharing the attention of local fans with the Pistons, who are deep into the NBA playoffs and will be playing across town at the same time in both Games 1 and 2.
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| Wings keeper Chris Osgood still has his skeptics. (US Presswire) |
So does having rabid fan support translate into an advantage known as the so-called seventh man on the ice? That's one of the questions that will be answered over the next couple of weeks. Here are a few others.
Is age better than beauty?
The Pittsburgh Penguins are the sexiest team in the NHL right now -- youthful, exuberant and led by the game's cover boy, Sidney Crosby. They're not too shabby when it comes to playing the game either, but they're coming into a situation unlike any that most of them have faced before. A big part of winning the Stanley Cup Finals is not only doing the job on the ice, but handling all the pressure that goes with being under a white-hot spotlight, especially when some inevitable adversity crops up.
The Red Wings have nearly as much overall skill, and they're older, which translates into experience, including a significant part of it from being in these kinds of situations. In fact Detroit has 10 players with Stanley Cup rings, and only one of those (Brian Rafalski) wasn't won in a Red Wings sweater. Pittsburgh has three players with their names engraved on the trophy -- none of them as Penguins -- and two of them (Darryl Sydor and Gary Roberts) have been regular scratches in these playoffs.
How much gas is left in Evgeni Malkin's tank?
There were some suggestions that Malkin was running on empty toward the end of the Eastern Conference finals because he had stopped scoring. Malkin has already played more games than he did as a rookie last season for Pittsburgh, and significantly more than he ever played in Russia.
Still Penguins coach Michel Therrien pooh-poohed the notion of fatigue, suggesting that Malkin's offense would improve once he figured out how to fight his way through the Flyers' physical game. Malkin did score a weak goal in the finale against Philadelphia, but he wasn't nearly as noticeable as many of the team's other star players in the rout that closed out the series, so the question persists. And he'll have to deal with the kind of head-hunter in Detroit defenseman Niklas Kronwall that he has yet to face.
Will Detroit be able to balance its act?
Notwithstanding goals from a couple of grinders in the last game of the Western finals against a Dallas team that was totally spent, there is a legitimate concern in Detroit about the lack of secondary scoring. The issue festered all season until Johan Franzen went on a remarkable tear that began in March and carried through the first two rounds of the playoffs. But concussion-like symptoms sidelined the "Mule" before Game 2 against the Stars and again left the burden of offense almost entirely on the Red Wings top line.
Detroit isn't saying if Franzen will return against Pittsburgh, but if he doesn't, the Red Wings will have to figure out how to get offense from players not named Zetterberg, Datysuk and Holmstrom because the Penguins can shut down big lines as well as Detroit can. Thing is, if the Red Wings stop the Crosby or Malkin lines, Pittsburgh can still get offense from Jordan Staal's unit and from time to time, the fourth line. Detroit needs similar contributions from their depth players.
