Experienced Detroit puts on clinic in Stanley Cup opener

DETROIT -- In the days leading up to the start of the Stanley Cup Finals, Red Wings coach Mike Babcock was asked several times to articulate the tangible value of playoff experience.

'Once we got skating and executed, we were a better hockey club and played well,' coach Mike Babcock explains. (Getty Images)

It was, after all, supposed to be the big advantage his veteran team had over the young Pittsburgh Penguins, and in the minds of many, the potential differentiating point in a series between the NHL's two best and otherwise evenly matched teams. Yet while the question was a perfectly natural one to put to Babcock, none of the varied answers he could offer proved as telling as the effort Detroit turned in to win the series opener 4-0.

In essence, the Red Wings came up with the perfect explanation by putting on a clinic against the Eastern Conference champions. When all was said and done, Detroit had shown the importance of not only having been through this kind of situation before, but understanding how to deal with the adversity that championship teams have to go through.

Ultimately Detroit did the things it had to win this game -- and by extension the series -- shutting down the Penguins vaunted offensive attack, spreading its scoring around and getting the kind of goaltending from Chris Osgood that teams at this stage need and count on. But most of all, the Red Wings showed their mettle by not getting rattled when things were going bad.

And they were bad for the first 20 minutes because the Red Wings found themselves shorthanded four times and had the game's first goal called back on a controversial interference call against Tomas Holmstrom in front of the Penguins net. Still Detroit found a way to keep things scoreless by the time the first intermission arrived, and when the teams returned to the ice, the Red Wings had clearly recalibrated things in their favor.

"We didn't move our feet at the start, I thought we were nervous," Babcock said. "I knew at home here you always want to get off to a good start, and maybe you put a little too much pressure on yourself. But once we got skating and executed, we were a better hockey club and played well."

Certainly well enough to take the game away. The Red Wings limited Pittsburgh to just seven shots over the final 40 minutes, prevented the Penguins from getting any decent scoring chances and most important, stayed out of the box late in the third period when the situation was well in hand.

"We didn't turn over pucks as much as we did in the first -- that's why we got all those penalties," said Osgood. "We got pucks deep and we were tough on their D in the last two periods, and we made them skate back for a lot of pucks. Defense is difficult when guys are hitting you non-stop for 40 straight minutes. That's what we accomplished and that's why we ended up getting the goals we did."

Of course a couple of mistakes by the Penguins, most of whom were playing in their first Stanley Cup Final, helped as well. The biggest came 13 minutes into the second period when Penguins forward Jarkko Ruutu's weak clearing pass out of his own zone was picked off by Mikael Samuelsson at center ice while Pittsburgh was in the midst of a line change.

Samuelsson, who had not scored since Game 4 of the Western semifinals against Colorado, charged past Pittsburgh defenseman Rob Scuderi and had enough speed to get around the net and bank his shot off goalie Marc-Andre Fleury who was a bit slow getting over.

"Bad decision with the puck, bad change, those are mental mistakes you can't do against a team like the Red Wings," Penguins coach Michel Therrien said. "I thought we got a good start in the first 10 minutes, but we didn't score a power goal which would have been nice and given us some confidence, and they really took it over in the second period."

Still the Penguins were close enough that a goal would have changed everything. But the Red Wings didn't get them a chance, choking off the flow to Pittsburgh's game even if Detroit didn't seem overly concerned with using the last line change to get particular matchups. Even so, the Red Wings looked like they had far more jump over the last two periods and they took advantage when Samuelsson forechecked hard early in the third period, stealing the puck and getting his second unassisted goal of the game.

That effectively put the game away, although the Red Wings put an exclamation point on things when Dan Cleary scored a shorthanded goal at 17:18 and Henrik Zetterberg wrapped it up with a power play goal with only 13 seconds remaining. Whether or not it was a statement remains to be seen, but what is certain is that Penguins are experiencing something for the first time in these playoffs by being behind in a series.

"This is called adversity," Penguins forward Maxime Talbot said. "We had some bad games this year and every time we bounced back very hard and that's what we plan to do in Game 2."