Wilted Red Wings must live with loss of their own doing

DETROIT -- It was one of the rare occasions in these playoffs that Nicklas Lidstrom didn't have to go to the media podium, much as he would have liked to.

Instead the Red Wings captain was forced to hold court in front of his locker room stall, one of the few Detroit players to emerge in the immediate aftermath of a stunning 2-1 loss to the Penguins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals at home. But really, there wasn't much he could say.

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"It's kind of devastating because it was a real close game, but we put ourselves in a bad position going down 2-0," he said. "It's hard falling short one game, you're so close to a Stanley Cup, fighting hard the whole season to put yourself in a situation and then to lose the way we did tonight at home, it's really tough."

Especially since it gave the Red Wings a taste of what the Penguins felt last year when they watched Detroit skate the Stanley Cup around in Pittsburgh. The Penguins had to withstand a fierce start by Detroit in this Game 7, but stayed patient and didn't deviate from a smart defensive game plan that shut down the defending champions and their high-scoring offense.

"It's hard to see that we can't get more than a goal in the last couple of games," Lidstrom said. "When the play really matters, we have to score but they played us smart, chipping the pucks and getting them deep."

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Ultimately the relentless defense by the Penguins forced Detroit into turnovers, a problem for the Red Wings throughout this series and Pittsburgh capitalized on a couple of them which proved to be the margin of victory and the revenge for last year's defeat.

Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom says 'it's really tough' to swallow this loss. (AP)

"We've been on the other end, so this isn't fun obviously," Kirk Maltby said. "You have to have a whole group out there, you can't just rely on your star players and assume they're going to go out and get that goal or get us going. But the thing is we ran out of time."

Detroit did put on a furious last push and nearly got the equalizer when Niklas Kronwall hit the goal post with two minutes remaining, and in the dying seconds when Marc-Andre Fleury dove across the crease to stop a shot from Lidstrom. But in essence the Penguins kept the Red Wings skaters to the outside most of the evening, closing the lanes and blocking shots when they did get chances and for the most part, preventing the home team from mounting any type of sustained attack. "I think once they scored the first goal they got a lot of confidence," said Henrik Zetterberg. "Maybe we were pressing too much when we didn't really have to, we made the hard passes across the ice trying to force some plays that weren't there. I think we played better in the third period when we got back to playing the way we should have, but it was too late obviously."

What was obvious, at least to Detroit coach Mike Babcock, was that his team really had hit a wall by the time this series started. The Red Wings had spent much of the previous six games denying they were fatigued, but Babcock said he thought the veteran club was dealing with undisclosed injuries to several key players and had little left by the time it had to face the Penguins.

"I thought we looked pretty much out of gas all series," he said. "We competed and tried, but I thought we never got to the level we would have liked."

Still, Babcock said the difference in the finale were the two crucial second period turnovers that led to a pair of Maxime Talbot goals.

"In this type of game, it's always tough to recover and use the minutes you should when you get behind like we did," Babcock said. "But they competed hard, so part of the equation is them. You've got to give them credit."