The Wings played exactly the kind of game they had to last night, crushing the Anaheim Mighty Ducks by a score of 6-3 in order to tie their second-round series at 2-2.
The local media has talked, with great obviousness, about how the Wings don’t want to go down 3-1 to the Ducks. Over ninety percent of the teams who take a 3-1 lead go on to win a series. Given the small margin of error in playoff hockey, along with the Ducks ability to clamp down and shut off a team’s scoring, it’s hard to say that the Wings could pull themselves out of that hole.
But more than the stats and likehood of a series win, what most impressed me about last night’s win was something intangible — the urgency of the team.
Hossa, who scored his second and third, oh wait, first and second goals of the series, was obviously motivated by the bad call that ended game 3. And Johan Franzen, who continues the tear he went on in last year’s playoffs, is solidifying his reputation as “Mister April,” a team leader who steps up when the team’s first-line scoring threat is smothered by an opposing defense.
Franzen and Lidstrom congratulate Osgood after the Wings' 6-3 in Anaheim.
I think this win is a sign of good things to come. It shows that the Wings are poised and able to overcome adversity. This is something that we rarely saw from the team in the 90′s and the earlier part of this decade. As talented and as skilled as that team was, as a fan I couldn’t help but think that they needed to occasionally toughen up.
Looking forward to Sunday’s game 5 in Detroit.
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