Game #6 - Oilers 4, Wings 3

Pregame - The Captain is playing in tonight's game. Knowing that Steve Yzerman will be playing makes me feel a whole lot better about the game today. Obviously he's going to be in pain, but hopefully that will inspire the Wings into action. It will be Yzerman's 196th playoff game; his experience and passion will certainly be an asset.

Those are the types of performances that define Yzerman, who usually saves his best for the biggest games. He has become comfortable in the suffocating atmosphere that is the chase for the Stanley Cup. He has learned to push the inevitable butterflies to the side and attack these games with the steely eyed determination necessary to make a personal impact as well as set the tone for his team. "Early in my career, (I'd) be extremely nervous, where I found myself always extremely nervous without a lot of experience," said Yzerman. "I found in the last few years I've just gotten much more comfortable and you kind of know what to expect and you know what it's all about."

- We must get the first couple goals in order to establish our style of play. We also cannot afford stupid defensive errors and Lidstrom needs to be on fire tonight! Manny can't be average - he needs to be great or amazing for this series to head back to Detroit on Wednesday. The Oilers are going to be flying today with their crazy loud Rexall crowd behind them. - The Wings have over 1600 playoff game experience among the roster; let's use that veteran experience and knowledge to our advantage. - I would get such joy in seeing the Wings score a goal while Pronger was in the box. I just can't believe he has 0 PIM this series - very impressive. First Period - The first three minutes provided numerous opportunities for the Wings from the likes of Henrik Zetterberg, Kris Draper, and Pavel Datsyuk. (Shots: 4-1 in favor of Detroit) - Oilers get the first power play. Blast it. Mikael Samuelsson is heading to the box with 15:41 left in the first thanks to his hooking ability. The Oilers are 6/31 on the PP this series...The Wings were able to successfully kill this penalty. - The PP gave the Oilers some momentum and have had some nice scoring chances of their own. (Shots: 6-4 in favor of Edmonton) - Mathieu Schneider was called for high sticking so the Oilers go on the power play, again. Crap crap crap. Manny made a couple key saves and Maltby blocked the last shot of the PP. This penalty was also successfully killed by the Wings. (Shots: 12-6 in favor of Edmonton) - Zetterberg scores!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Steals the puck from Spacek (who had intercepted a Samuelsson pass) and dekes Roloson to get his 6th goal of the postseason at 14:36 into the first. Lilja was also given the assist. It's the second time this series that the Wings have scored first. When was the last game? Game #1. Wings 1, Oilers 0 - Samuelsson is going to the penalty box. Twice in one period! Ugh. Way to get the assist, but the Oilers are going to score on the power play - it's only a matter of time. We don't want to give them 25 million chances tonight. We can't afford this. - Draper and Maltby had a great shorthanded chance on the penalty kill. The two went 2 on 1, but Roloson made the save. - Chris Pronger *finally* got a penalty for interference (17:09 into the first)! Woohoo! So it's 4 on 4 for 1:20 minutes and then we'll get 40 seconds with the man advantage. It's just very comforting to know that Pronger won't be on the ice during this time. :) - Neither team scored on their respective power plays. - Obviously, I would've liked a two goal lead but at least we have a lead. And Manny has been reasonably solid tonight. End of First Period: Wings 1, Oilers 0 (Edmonton outshot Detroit, 15-10) Second Period - Apparently Cheli blocked a shot and hasn't played this period, yet. Don't know any more information than that. (a little less than 4 minutes into the second) - Spacek called for hooking Robert Lang (15:06 left in second). Lets go Wings! Man...Tomas Holmstrom called for interference - this sucks. 1:36 of 4 on 4 hockey then a short Oilers power play. No goals scored. - Shots favor Detroit, 5-1. Roloson just made a big save on Dan Cleary. Roloson has been playing pretty well tonight. - Chelios is finally back in (9:20 left). - Yzerman hit the goalpost making it two hit goalposts hit in 6 minutes. Craziness! I'm liking what I'm seeing - they aren't in their typical second period slump. - Mickey Redmond: "You gotta say it's the Dwayne Roloson show." - Pronger is going back in the penalty box thanks to a high sticking penalty. After winning the face-off, Yzerman makes a sweet pass to Robert Lang (to the left of Roloson) after receiving the pass from Lang (who got it from Schneider). Lang scores!!!!!!!!!!! What did I say about how sweet it'd be with Pronger in the box and a Wings goal? Goal came 14:02 into the second period while on the power play. Wings 2, Oilers 0 - Wings have outshot the Oilers, 10-1, this period. The Wings must keep up this intensity; we cannot afford to become lax and make costly errors. - Yzerman has been coming out to take the face-offs and then go to the bench. Yzerman has been looking fantastic today - the Captain certainly is something else! - I love this comment from someone on the Lets Go Wings forum: "Man, any more whining by the Oilers fans in the arena, and they might as well start handing out free pacifiers." I thought Horcoff really was offsides, sharp call by the officials. - Another great LGW comment about the Captain: "I think I've run out of words to describe how much I appreciate Steve Yzerman these days. What he's done tonight (in the second period especially) on that back of his is just amazing." End of Second Period: Wings 2, Edmonton 0 (Detroit outshot Edmonton, 17-2) Third Period - For a change, we're actually seeing the Wings actually playing like themselves. Let's just hope that they can keep this up in the third and make it 3-0 or 4-0! - Jason Williams took an incredibly stupid penalty; it didn't save us from a potential goal and it had no value whatsoever. Oilers PP starts with 17:17 left. And 13 seconds into the PP, Fernando Pisani scores at 2:56 into the second. He scored off of Ryan Smyth's rebound. We cannot take stupid penalties - ugh. The Wings must rebound from this; we cannot hand the momentum over to the Oilers after we've dominated for most of the game. Wings 2, Oilers 1 - We cannot lose our composure. We still have a lead, but we won't for long at this rate of stupidity. - Brett Lebda got injured and went off to the bench - from the quick look at Lebda, it appears to be shoulder related. Edit: He is now back on the ice. - Wow, the Wings have only spent 4 nights at home. While the Oilers have been in Edmonton eight nights. So much for home ice advantage. - Pisani makes a nice deke to tie the game up at two and get his second goal of the game with 13:20 left in the third. Crap. The Oilers have momentum and the Wings were playing so well in the first two periods. Ahhh. I'm panicking now; we need to go on a PP or something and get some offensive opportunities. Wings 2, Oilers 2 - Kronwall is tripped and the Wings go on the power play with 12:08 left. We have to score here to get some of the momentum and back in the game. Plus it would be nice to quiet the Rexall Crowd - man they are loud! Couple good chances in the PP, but no goal. - Wooo!! Johan Franzen drills it into the net with 9:53 left in the third for his first goal of the postseason (and the career). Cleary and Maltby were given credit for the assists. Wings 3, Oilers 2 - Lebda has now left for the training room. Shots are now even at 5 apiece. - Crap. Oilers will go on the power play. Please let the Wings kill this penalty - ahh. Dan Cleary called for interference. You can see Yzerman giving some words of advice to his teammates and then winning the face-off. - Man! The Oilers bloody scored. Manny is arguing about the call. Please no goal. Please! Crap - not looking good. There was a high stick in the play - that should've been called before. This sucks! Oh wait, there was a kicking motion by Hemsky's left foot, will they notice that? There was a high stick and kicking motion - ahhh. Wings 3, Oilers 3 - That was an awful awful awful call. The goal should not have stood and I'm bloody pissed off. The Wings better be angry too and respond! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I don't understand how that could be a goal. I realize they couldn't rule no goal because of a high stick, but the refs should've made that bloody call before Hemsky even started kicking. Absolutely fricking ridiculous. - Hemsky scores with 1:06 left in regulation. If the Wings lose, I'm going to be so pissed off. I want to cry. Who was guarding Hemsky? Man. Oilers 4, Wings 3 End of Third Period: Oilers 4, Wings 3 (Edmonton outshot Detroit, 13-9) Overall - I am so fricking upset. It would be one thing if we lost because the Wings played poorly / the Oilers played great. But that didn't happen - that third goal never should've happened. The Wings played mediocre for those first two goals, but I am sooo pissed off about the third. - The Wings deserved that game. Ahhhh. I can't even talk right now. I'm so upset and frustrated. I'm not an idiot thinking that the Wings deserved to win all the games, they got themselves into this precarious position. But, tonight's game is a different matter. - And now I have to drive down to Cinci tomorrow morning to prepare for an incredibly sucky surgery on Wednesday. Man this totally sucks. I want to hurt something - ugh. Stats - Detroit outshot Edmonton, 36-30. - Detroit went 1/6 on the PP / Edmonton went 2/6 on the PP - Edmonton won 62% of the face-offs. Wow. - Edmonton defeats the President's Trophy winners in the series, 4-2. Final Thoughts Tonight - I'll post some more tomorrow morning before I head to Cinci after I've had the night to sleep on it. (Mainly I'll talk about who needs to go and who should stay...) - If that was Yzerman's last game...I don't even want to think about it. Please don't retire Yzie. - I would not want to be Ken Holland right now - he has a lot of work to do this off-season with this great regular season / early round playoff exit team mess. - I want to say congrats to the Oilers; they played with passion and pounced on all the Wings mistakes. Roloson played a great series and really kept them in tonight's game. While I won't be cheering for the Oilers in future playoff rounds, they did pull off an upset and it was not by luck. - Until the team learns to play a full 60 minutes of hockey in the playoff games, we're going to always be booted out in an early round. This whole series the Wings struggled to play 40 solid minutes per game, much less 60. - Someone on the LGW forum brought up a good thought, we may have been screwed over by a ref's bad call (or two or three or four) but the Wings had many chances and could never capitalize. There has been bad reffing throughout the entire series; the Wings need to learn to rise above it and still win these games. - Tonight's costly errors in defense cost the Wings those first two Oilers goals - not the refs. What happened to our coverage? While I totally disagree with the third goal standing, our coverage on the other three goals was just awful. I'm not placing complete blame on Manny. He had to deal with a breakaway, poor defensive coverage, and the puck being kicked in. He certainly wasn't great (like we needed him to be), but he was not the whole reason we lost tonight in my opinion.