GAME REPORT: DUCKS vs. RED WINGS

FIRST PERIOD

Detroit 4, Mighty Ducks 0

Shots: Detroit 17, Ducks 8

Power Play: Detroit 2-3, Ducks 0-2

Penalties/minutes: Detroit 2/4, Ducks 4-8

Highlight Reel: Brendan Shanahan wins the Jaromir Jagr/Theoren Fleury deke-alike contest when he takes off from the red line, cuts inside Matt Cullen, then outside Ted Drury and back inside Ruslan Salei. Cullen comes back for another try and does enough to make Shanahan give up the puck. So what? Tomas Holmstrom is there in front of the Mighty Duck goal to poke the puck past Guy Hebert. If he hadn’t been, somebody else would have been there. Detroit players were in front of Hebert the whole 20 minutes.

It’s Not in the Summary: Detroit already has a 1-0 lead (can it be this easy?), but Chris Chelios is in Paul Kariya’s face with less than two minutes played, reminding him that, yes, the Red Wings are up, but that the physical punishment will continue to be relentless and have absolutely nothing to do with the scoreboard.

Winning Number: It’s four, and not just because the Red Wings have that many goals. It’s because all of the scoring shots were launched in Hebert’s face while his defensemen seemed to be elsewhere looking out for their physical well-being. You can take this being in awe business too far.

Wrong Number: Chris Osgood managed to go through an entire period of playoff hockey without breaking a sweat because none of the eight Mighty Duck shots was serious enough even to raise his pulse, much less require any physical exertion to make a save. Is there something in the Duck game plan that requires shooting from a different ZIP code than the goalie?