Guten Morgen, Ihr Lieben!
Colorado vs. Detroit 3:3
Detroit veterans find net to force Game 7
DENVER (AP) -- Brendan Shanahan said he didn't sleep well after missing an open net in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals.
He made sure that wasn't a problem after Game 6.
Shanahan broke out of his scoring slump with a goal in the first period, and Dominik Hasek stopped 24 shots as the Red Wings beat the Colorado Avalanche 2-0 Wednesday night to force a Game 7.
"You tell yourself good things when you're getting close and hitting posts, but it's still very frustrating,'' Shanahan said. "I personally wanted to have a big night, but I don't think it was a night of personal gains.''
Detroit broke a four-game losing streak in elimination games dating to a victory over St. Louis in the 1996 conference semifinals.
Colorado will have to play a Game 7 for the fourth straight series -- extending its own league record -- and for the fifth time in its last six series.
The Avalanche have won four straight Game 7s, including victories over Los Angeles and San Jose this year.
Game 7 is Friday night in Detroit (ESPN, 7 p.m. ET).
"We are not happy going back to Detroit,'' Colorado goalie Patrick Roy said. "It is a big challenge, but it's been like this for us all year. We have a hard time making it easy on ourselves.''
The Red Wings rallied from eight one-goal deficits in the first five games, but didn't need any comebacks this time.
Shanahan, criticized for his lack of production in the series, opened the scoring with 38 seconds left in the first period on a shot that Roy thought he stopped.
Roy raised his glove, thinking he caught Shanahan's shot from the slot, but the puck hit the ice and trickled into the net. Roy briefly tried to argue the call, then bent over and covered his mask with both gloves in frustration.
"I didn't know if I had it in my glove,'' said Roy, who stopped 26 shots. "I held my glove up looking for the puck and it rolled back.''
It was Shanahan's fifth goal of the playoffs, but his first since Game 4 against St. Louis in the second round. He hit a post with two minutes left in regulation in Game 5, which Colorado won 2-1 in overtime.
It was also the first time Detroit scored the first goal in the series and the Red Wings' first lead in regulation since the third period of Game 1.
"Sometimes when you get the lead you sit back, and I was glad we didn't,'' Detroit coach Scott Bowman said.
Darren McCarty made it 2-0 with 6:33 left in the second after a Colorado turnover in Detroit's zone.
Colorado was trying to set up near the right circle, but Peter Forsberg couldn't reach a back pass by Martin Skoula. McCarty beat Roy stickside with a slap shot from the left faceoff dot after keeping the puck on a 3-on-1 break.
It was McCarty's first goal since scoring three straight in the third period of Game 1.
"I thought 1-0, we were all right, but 2-0 was a different game for them,'' Colorado's Chris Drury said. "They could sit back a little more.''
Hasek, who allowed goals at critical moments in the previous two games, was spectacular at times in earning his fourth shutout of the playoffs this year and 10th of his career.
He turned away a flip shot by Milan Hejduk on a power play in the second period, then sprawled out to stop Hejduk from close range a few minutes later.
Hasek also made a skate save on a hard shot by Joe Sakic during a power play in the third, and a sliding stop on Steven Reinprecht a few seconds later.
"They had their chances, but Dom came up big when he needed to,'' Detroit's Chris Chelios said.
Colorado raised the ire of the Red Wings in the second period by asking the officials to check the width of Hasek's stick.
Hasek reluctantly agreed to hand over his stick, then made repeated motions to get it back after the officials ruled it to be within the 3½-inch limit.
The move resulted in a bench penalty against Colorado and wiped out 1:23 of a power play.
"We had information that Hasek was playing with an illegal stick and down 2-0 with 1:20 on the power play, we thought the timing was right,'' Colorado coach Bob Hartley said. "Sometimes in games you try some things that work. Unfortunately for us, that one didn't.''
Colorado, already thin on the front lines due to injuries, lost forward Stephane Yelle to a sprained neck midway through the second period.
Injuries to Mike Keane (ribs), Alex Tanguay (leg) and Dan Hinote (leg) forced Colorado to move defenseman Pascal Trepanier to forward.
Game notes
Roy has faced 130 shots in the past three games. ... McCarty leads the Red Wings with four goals in the series. ... Trepanier played just his second game of the playoffs. ... Colorado has failed to score on its last 13 power plays. ... Detroit's Brett Hull was injured early in the second when he hit the backboards after tangling with Rob Blake, but later returned.
Shanahan sparks Red Wings' clutch effort
By Lindsay Berra
ESPN The Magazine
DENVER -- Patrick Roy thought he had it in his glove.
A point-blank shot from Detroit's Steve Yzerman went Roy's way with just 40 seconds left in the opening period of Wednesday's Game 6, and when Roy raised his glove in his own unique style, the Colorado goalie thought he made the save.
He didn't. Roy instead swept the puck back towards the goal line, and a charging Brendan Shanahan slammed it home.
A dejected Roy held his head in his hands, and an elated Shanahan ended one big slump.
It was Shanahan's first goal since May 11 and his first goal on 23 shots in the series, helping Detroit beat Colorado 2-0 to force a Game 7 in the West finals.
"I charged the net looking for garbage and when I got there, it was waiting for me," Shanahan said. "I was way in the high slot when Stevie (Yzerman) took the shot. I thought I saw something behind Roy, and I just hoped it was the puck."
Shanahan's goal marked the first time in the series Detroit drew first blood in a game, and the Red Wings successfully defended it. Detroit's penalty killers stifled Colorado's power play -- the Avalanche went 0-4 -- and promptly swarmed Avs sniper Peter Forsberg each time he touch the puck, holding him to just one shot on goal in the game.
"Sometimes when you get the lead you sit back, and I'm glad we didn't. That was something," Detroit coach Scotty Bowman said. "The second goal seemed to spur us on. A two-goal lead is definitely better than one."
That second tally came from Darren McCarty, the scrappy right winger who scored on a perfectly placed slap shot just out of the reach of Roy's right leg pad.
"On the flight here, the guys were upbeat and confident. We said that coming into Colorado facing elimination would be a test of character and unity," Shanahan said. "The guys were calm and prepared, and the effort was intense."
Facing elimination, the Red Wings played their most physical game of the series. Defensemen Jiri Fischer and Chris Chelios, and high-flying center Sergei Fedorov all led the way with six hits each, and the Wings outhit the Avs 58-48. They forechecked and took advantage of the Avs' hesitant newcomers (Pascal Trepanier and Radim Vrbata were playing their first game of the series), repeatedly forcing Colorado to cough up the puck before it could move it to the blue line.
Detroit goaltender Dominik Hasek looked more solid than he has in the first five games of the series, perhaps because of Avalanche coach Bob Hartley's attack on his integrity in the final minutes of the second period.
While on the power play, Hartley called for the referees to check the measurement of Hasek's stick. It measured up just fine, falling below the maximum width of 3½ inches. Because he was wrong, Hartley gave up his team's man advantage.
"I have sticks from the factory that are maybe one millimeter illegal, but I would never play with it in the playoffs," Hasek said. "I was really happy they checked it, because I knew they were going to get a penalty."
Now, it's the Avs on the hot seat. Detroit has won the depth contest from the get-go, and is still rolling four well-balanced lines. The injury-laden Avs will be playing without Mike Keane (ribs), Alex Tanguay (leg) and Dan Hinote (leg), and possibly without Stephane Yelle, who suffered a neck sprain on a hit by Kirk Maltby in the second period.
Detroit will take advantage of that President's Trophy and head back to Joe Louis Arena for Game 7. Not that home ice has meant much in this series -- the road team has won four of the six games.
"When we lose, we're old. When we win, we're experienced," McCarty said. "This was all experience. We knew we had to come in here and win a game on the road, and we did."
Now, we'll see if experience can get the mighty Red Wings a series-clincher at the Joe.
Depleted Avs face Game 7 in rowdy Detroit
By Terry Frei
Special to ESPN.com
DENVER -- The Colorado Avalanche's biggest task? After applying a seventh-game urgency to Wednesday night's Game 6 against the Red Wings in Denver, but losing, they have to tell themselves:
Never mind. No big deal.
And they have to believe it.
"We're going to battle until the last second and we're going to Detroit with the firm intention of coming back here for Game 1 of the finals," Colorado coach Bob Hartley said after the Wings' series-tying 2-0 victory Wednesday night.
Suddenly, though, the Avalanche seem in dire straits, and this is the rare instance of not overreacting to the outcome of a single game.
The Avalanche were two lines and a prayer to start with, but now that the injuries are mounting, they're more like two lines and the Hershey Bears.
Dan Hinote, Mike Keane and Alex Tanguay almost certainly will miss Game 7, as they missed Game 6.
Plus, there is the issue of mentally having to change gears from what was their understandable approach going into Game 6. They were saying that had to consider it an issue of win-or-else desperation.
The core of the team still remembered how home ice suddenly became advantageous for the Stars in seventh games at Dallas in the Western Conference finals in 1999 and 2000, and how the Avalanche mantra after that became trying to ensure that any seventh games would be played in a Denver barn. The biggest missed opportunity, the Avs said over and over, came when they failed in a chance to close out the Stars in Game 6 of the 1999 Western Conference finals at home.
Plus, the Avalanche themselves have reasserted home-ice control in Game 7s against Los Angeles (twice), New Jersey and San Jose in the 2001 and 2002 playoffs.
They heard the Devils lament that they, too, had really lost a series – in this case, last year's Stanley Cup finals – when they didn't win a Game 6 at home against the Avalanche.
But now the Avalanche are getting right back on the charter flight Thursday, heading back to the land of the octopii for a winner-gets-the-Hurricanes Game 7.
To have any shot at all, they must convince themselves that they haven't let the Wings off the hook, and Patrick Roy must get beyond denial long enough to get angry over his latest gaffe.
Roy apparently indulged in a bit of grandstanding, trying to show off the puck after stopping a Steve Yzerman shot. He lost control, allowing Brendan Shanahan an easy tap-in for the first goal Wednesday night.
"I thought I had the puck, and I made a great save on Yzerman," Roy said. "I thought I had it in my glove, I was looking for the puck. I guess it just rolled under me and they put it in."
That they did. It was the first time in the series Detroit scored the first goal of the game, and this time, it held up.
Game 7 is the ultimate "money" game, of course, so perhaps this is a fitting climax to a series involving Roy's attempt to refortify his image as the goaltender hockey men would want in the crease if their lives depended on the outcome of one three-period, high-tension, high-stakes night.
And down in the other crease?
Dominik Hasek, who has all those regular-season trophies on his resume -- Hart, Vezina -- and an Olympic gold medal in a business that sometimes treats them as if they are roughly as valuable as Confederate currency in 1881.
Hasek needed to step up and steal a monumental stakes playoff game before he had the right to pop off about the play in front of him, and that's pretty close to what he did in Game 6. He had 24 saves, but he made the big, acrobatic ones when they mattered, and he helped avoid what would have an ignominious and recrimination-triggering series loss for a team built with two goals in mind -- beating Colorado and winning the Stanley Cup.
Does Colorado have a chance Friday?
Of course.
This road-warrior series has seen the team in the darker uniforms win four times in six games, and it even has included what might never happen again in the NHL -- two spleenless Swedes (Fredrik Olausson and Peter Forsberg) scoring overtime goals to give their teams wins away from home.
The Colorado elite talent still is capable of making the sort of superlative, breathtaking plays that can turn a game – whether that means Forsberg writing another remarkable chapter in his comeback story; Joe Sakic beating Hasek with a wrist shot (or two); Chris Drury coming up with another "winning" play; Rob Blake overcoming what now is known to be the hand-area injury that has accompanied his leg problem; or Roy simply saying, all right, that's enough, and erecting an impenetrable plane in front of the Colorado net.
But against a team with so much talent, and with an elite goalie of its own, the reality probably is that Colorado probably has gotten the most out of a drastically tiered roster -- just to get to a seventh game against a better team.
Yes, anything can happen in a Game 7.
But that includes running head-on into the law of averages.
Terry Frei of The Denver Post is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
Carolina Hurricanes
Carolina endures bad times to reach finals
Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. -- This is a franchise with a miserable postseason past, the NHL's youngest coach and a collection of players who aren't exactly household names.
No wonder the hockey world is stunned that the Carolina Hurricanes are playing for the Stanley Cup.
At the start of the season, Las Vegas gave 40-to-1 odds that the Hurricanes would win hockey's top prize.
But Carolina will be playing in June, a month when the Bermuda grass is in full bloom on North Carolina's golf courses and the temperature hits the mid-90s.
The Hurricanes, who moved South five seasons ago from Hartford, Conn., won the Eastern Conference championship Tuesday night by beating the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1 in overtime, capturing the best-of-seven series 4-2.
The franchise, which gets little national television exposure, was 1-11 in playoff series before beating New Jersey, Montreal and the Maple Leafs this spring. Carolina became the first team since the 1985 Edmonton Oilers to win three straight series on the road.
"When you are in a situation like Detroit, the expectations are there and the only type of emotion you feel is disappointment if you don't get the Cup," said defenseman Aaron Ward, who was traded by the Red Wings to Carolina in the offseason. "We're put in a situation here where the sky is the limit and nobody sets any standards for us. As we go along it's more exciting to achieve that level of surprise.''
About 700 screaming fans greeted the team when it arrived early Wednesday at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, while several miles away fans began lining up at 3 a.m. to buy tickets to the Cup finals at the Entertainment and Sports Arena box office.
When the windows opened five hours later, tickets to Games 3, 4, and 6 were sold out in 35 minutes.
"There is tremendous interest here, and the people are so genuinely happy and they feel, rightfully so, that they have a piece of this and are a big part of it,'' coach Paul Maurice said.
Ward said he was shocked when he turned his radio on at 2 a.m. during his drive home.
"They were giving updates that three lanes were jammed outside of the ESA,'' Ward said. "I am very impressed with what has gone on here. You can't help but get caught up in the excitement and the emotion of the moment. The fact that our fans are again disregarding their jobs and their families to camp out at 3 and 4 in the morning, that says a lot about what this has done for this city.''
Carolina's unexpected march to the Cup finals relied on defense, goaltending and timely scoring. The Hurricanes allowed just 29 goals in 18 playoff games, Arturs Irbe had a 1.41 goals-against average and 10 different players scored game-winning goals.
One other important component -- confidence.
"I guess the thing you learn the most is that winning does a lot more for your team than any speeches, any strategies, any adjustments,'' the 35-year-old Maurice said. "That belief that you can win, even when it's not going your way, is the critical lesson for us in these playoffs.''
Maurice, who came close to being fired in December, said he and others spent time on the team plane reflecting on the franchise's hard times -- both on the ice and in the stands.
"There were a lot of quiet moments on the plane,'' Maurice said. "At the front of my seat there is a TV and a mirror and I just kind of enjoyed watching the guys enjoy it.''
"For me, it's more about my staff and the guys that have been in place a long time,'' Maurice added. "We came to work (Wednesday) and smiled at each other. There was a serious lack of tension in the office today, which is a nice change. It will build back up to the normal pitch.''
Ward laughed when asked about another wave of media that will converge on Raleigh with questions about the viability of the market, which has gone Cup crazy the last six weeks.
"Now we'll have all the people from the international media, from Japan and Finland, asking where the NASCAR tracks are. We'll re-direct them,'' Ward said. "If that's the best they've got to make fun of, let's be happy. We're not the murder capital of the world or the worst dressed place. So we're Mayberry -- oh well.''
Maurice's 'mongrels' follow suit vs. Toronto
By E.J. Hradek
ESPN The Magazine
TORONTO -- It didn't take long for the Carolina Hurricanes to embrace the underdog role in the upcoming Stanley Cup finals.
Just minutes after their Eastern Conference title-clinching 2-1 overtime win in Toronto on Tuesday night, Hurricanes coach Paul Maurice joked that the club had applied for "underdog status." (He said he was waiting to hear from the media concerning the request.)
Maurice doesn't seem to care that his "mongrels" -- as he called them -- will be a decided underdog against either Colorado or Detroit.
"We will not be favored," Maurice said. "But then again, were we at any point?"
When you think about, they really haven't been.
The Southeast Division champions certainly weren't the favorite against the defending Eastern Conference champs and perennial power Devils in the first round. Yet, the 'Canes won in six games, clinching on the road.
In the second round, many observers -- including this one -- didn't think the Hurricanes would get past Jose Theodore and the Canadiens. But, again, they won in six games, wrapping it up with a rout on the road.
And, finally, Carolina was a 50-50 proposition, at best, to defeat the resilient Leafs, who seemed like a team with nine (or more) playoff lives. But, one more time, the Hurricanes eliminated another opponent in six games, in enemy territory.
So, it's easy to see why Maurice won't mind playing David to the Western Conference's Goliath in the final round.
"It's not any big concern," Maurice said. "We'll probably have a little fun with it.
"We'll go home, rest the mongrels and see what we can do."
What Carolina might want to do is get either the Wings or Avs into overtime. The Hurricanes, who played the most regular-season overtime games, have won six of seven when sent into extra sessions on their surprising march through the postseason.
On Tuesday at the Air Canada Centre, they worked their OT magic again. This time, the hero was another unlikely candidate. Third-line left wing Martin Gelinas, who in another lifetime was traded for Wayne Gretzky and helped the Oilers win their last Stanley Cup in 1990, potted the series-winner at 8:05 of the extra session.
The winning goal was born when Toronto winger Alexander Mogilny -- who played an otherwise strong game -- tried to clear the puck by winding it around behind his own net. Hurricanes center Josef Vasicek read Mogilny's play and broke for the far corner. He was able to corral Mogilny's clearing attempt, then make a pass to the front of the net, where both Gelinas and right wing Jaroslav Svoboda moved in for the kill. Gelinas finished the bang-bang play by deflecting the pass over Curtis Joseph's pad.
Citing Gelinas' missed overtime opportunity against Boston in a first-round series in 1999, Maurice believed it was fitting the veteran winger scored the goal that propelled the franchise into its first Cup finals.
"It's never the guys you think," Maurice said. "But, it was appropriate for Marty. He's worked so hard. He deserves a little sunshine."
Maurice, though, didn't have any idea as to why his team was so good in overtime. Right wing Jeff O'Neill, however, came up with an explanation.
"We have a good defensive system and we crash the net a lot," said O'Neill, who scored Carolina's first goal and had several other scoring chances. "That's a good recipe for overtime goals, just throw it at the net."
Now, after a few days off, these happy underdogs will get to face their biggest challenge yet. And, they know it.
"We know we are going to play against a better and stronger team," said goalie Arturs Irbe, who was superb throughout the series, allowing just six goals in the six games. "I guess in a way we were not supposed to be here.
"But we always have found a way to find the heroes at the right time and in the right games," Irbe added. "It's a great feeling because this is a team, with a capital T."
So, this team will be an underdog. But so far, betting against the Hurricanes hasn't been a winning proposition.
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Mats
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