The Red Wings Autopsy

The Autopsy

[As usual for my blog posts, the language gets a little salty. What can I say? I’m pissed off.]

What happened? Seriously. A 2-0 lead? How do you lose that? 42 of the 45 teams ever to take a 2-0 lead in the finals have won. The Detroit Red Wings don’t blow that kind of lead. In the first round, maybe, but not in the finals. That just doesn’t happen. So what happened?

What happened is they blew it. They didn’t get beat, they lost. The Red Wings, when they played like the Red Wings, were the better team in this series. Even when they weren’t playing to their capabilities they were still pretty evenly matched with Pittsburgh. Usually in finals, whether in hockey or basketball (baseball’s too dependent on who’s pitching), if a team is off on a given day, no matter the relative talent level, it’s a blowout. (Think the first four games of the Pistons-Spurs finals. None of them was within 15 points, yet the series went down to the last six minutes or so of game 7.) That just didn’t happen to the Wings, even when they were playing horribly, as in games 4, 6 and 7. The goal differential over the seven games was 17-14 in favor of the Red Wings, and statistically speaking, teams should not get outscored over a series and still win. Now you could argue that the game 5 blowout accounts for the whole disparity, and if the Red Wings had won 3-1 or 4-2 there would be no such disparity, and you’d be right, but that’s not the point. The point is to show just how good the Red Wings are, even when they’re off their game. Remember, game 4 went about as badly for the Red Wings as game 5 did for the Penguins. Both teams were totally out-of-sync and melting down, and both ultimately gave up three goals in under ten minutes in the second period. Yet despite the similarities, the Wings won their game 5-0 and the Penguins only 4-2, and at one point the Wings had a 2-1 lead and what looked at the time like a legitimate chance to completely steal a game they had no business winning. Because the Red Wings don’t get blown out; they’re still in it, even when they’re playing like shit.

Speaking of playing like shit, the question ‘what happened?’ should really be directed towards the last two games, which were complete copies of each other. The Wings were utterly discombobulated for the first two periods, but more than that, they were lackadaisical, and then they turned it on in the third, already down 2-0, to make a game of it. (And it was close, especially in game 7, despite how bad they were. Forget Kronwall’s crossbar in the closing minutes, Cleary accidentally blocking Zetterberg’s clear shot at the end of the second was the bad omen/killer moment for the Wings. If that goes in, they probably win the Cup.) Again, it’s a testament to how good the Wings are that they can take two periods off against the best team in the East and be down only by two. The problem is, they never should have been in that position to begin with. They looked lazy and listless during those four periods, and that’s something that has to be put on Mike Babcock. It’s his job as coach to get the team mentally prepared, and they weren’t. They were completely lacking in urgency and purpose, something absolutely unacceptable in an elimination game in the finals, whether a game 7 or not. Babcock gave an interview the day before game 7 and was asked how he had told the team to prepare, and he said he told them to treat it like a regular game and stick to their routines. And while that’s not bad advice, it kind of misses the point; this wasn’t a regular game. On top of all that, the Wings had been having slow starts the whole series. Seriously, Mike, you didn’t want to address that for game 7?

The thing is, I didn’t think, until game 7 actually started, that they could lose. I thought there was no way the Detroit fucking Red Wings would lose a Stanley Cup in game 7 at the Joe. I know a lot of Wings fan felt that way, as did the media, and it seemed so did the Red Wings themselves. And that’s true: the Detroit Red Wings do not lose a Stanley Cup game 7 at home. The problem was, the team that came out those last two games wasn’t the Detroit Red Wings, it was the Detroit Pistons, ca. 2006 and 2007 playoffs. You know, the team who thought they were better than everyone else and would nap their way through playoff series only to wake up and start playing once it’s too late. The Red Wings seemed to think, especially after game 5, that they had it, that there was no way they could lose to a team that they not only beat the year before, but took their best player in the interim. They thought, like the Pistons, that all they had to do was show up and the Cup was theirs. And we all know how well that worked for the Pistons. (I think, by the way, had they played anyone other than Pittsburgh that they win in five or six. I think the rematch factor and the addition of Hossa lulled the Wings into their false sense of confidence, which wouldn’t have been there against anyone else. Even if they had trailed the Penguins in the series 2-1 or 3-2, there’s no way they lose like they did.)

This brings us to the topic of Maid Marian. If the only Red Wings games you watched all year were in the finals, you could be forgiven for wondering why all the fuss over an unaggressive second-line winger with two assists for the series who’s shaky in his own end and prone to horrendously bad giveaways. It is for these reasons, as well as the fact he never really seemed to fit within the Wings offense (he had a shockingly high number of unassisted goals in the regular season, which shows both a welcome talent for creating turnovers and poor chemistry with teammates), that I don’t think the Wings should keep him. [Ken Holland, if you’re reading (and I know you are), we need defensemen, not overpriced forwards who think forechecking is something offered free by banks to attract new customers (http://www.instantrimshot.com - thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week, be sure to tip your waitress). Do a sign-and-trade or just let him go outright and keep the money; Lebda and Lilja are not the future of the Red Wings blueline, and neither are Lidstrom and Rafalski, for that matter. See if you can’t get Quincey back from the Kings.]

Though as you may have noticed I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Maid Marian, it is unfair to single him out among the Red Wings in this series. Stuart didn’t play like he can, and Holmstrom just looked old and worn out. But again, crapping the bed this badly was a team effort, from the coaching staff down. Case in point: the Penguins’ first goal in game 7 came off a turnover at the side of the Wings’ net by Stuart. Detroit was breaking out, and Stuart was moving the puck from the corner into the middle, which is a break-out play the Wings use all the time, but Malkin jumped the play and stole the puck. Now while Stuart should never let that turnover happen, Malkin had been regularly jumping that play and disrupting their break-outs since at least game 4 (when I first noticed him doing it). So why was Stuart in that position to begin with? Why hadn’t the Wings adjusted their break-outs to something the Penguins (or at least Malkin) weren’t expecting? That’s not Stuart’s fault, that’s on the coaches.

Since this is an autopsy, I’ll declare the cause of death was playoff suicide. They had this series. The problem was they believed they already had it. And that’s why there’s a dead body of a season to be autopsied at all. I disagree with all the Wings fans who say it was a good season despite the loss. No, it wasn’t. And it wasn’t because they lost in the finals, it was because of how they lost. They gave it away. And that’s worse and ultimately much more disheartening as a fan than Michigan State getting smoked by North Carolina, or the Tigers forgetting how to throw after one amazing season, or the Pistons running out of fouls, big men and big men without fouls in the fourth quarter against the Spurs. This is worse. It’s not even like they choked, they just stopped playing. Hopefully this loss will wake the Wings up and get rid of any lingering Piston similarities. They are still the best team in the NHL, and by far the best organization. Chris Osgood was fantastic this spring, and the Wings will be back next year with some minor tweaks, most of them mental. Maybe they’ll face the Penguins in the finals again next year. I’m sure Maid Marian will sign with them over the summer (it only makes sense).

And if they do face Pittsburgh again, maybe Helm (my new favorite Red Wing, by the way, replacing the certain-to-retire Darren McCarty) can clock Sidney Crosby in his stupid fucking face. Seriously, how do you not shake the other team’s captain’s hand? What a prick.