Aging Red Wings take out Sharks
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Chris Chelios and Niklas Lidstrom spent nearly all of Game 6 Monday night alternating turns on the ice, desperately grinding on their aging legs to keep the Detroit Red Wings grinding ahead.
When the two brilliant defensemen finally got out of the Shark Tank with their whooping, hollering teammates, those old rearguards had new life – and the Red Wings had shed their title as the Western Conference’s biggest playoff underachievers of recent years.
They might have even found a team in teal uniforms to take their place.
Mikael Samuelsson scored two first-period goals, Dominik Hasek posted his 13th career playoff shutout and the Red Wings rolled into the conference finals with three straight wins in the second-round series, beating the deflated San Jose Sharks 2-0.
“I thought (San Jose) just played the most physical game of the entire series,” Lidstrom said after playing 29 minutes to Chelios’ 26-plus. “You could tell that they were a desperate team. They were getting the puck in on us and putting a good forecheck on us the entire night.”
But it didn’t matter – not with the defense in front of Hasek, who made 28 saves in his first shutout of the spring. The top-seeded Red Wings are headed to the conference finals for the first time since winning the Stanley Cup in 2002.
Detroit had won just one playoff series in the previous three seasons despite winning at least 48 games in each, earning two Presidents’ Trophies as the NHL’s best regular-season team. But the Red Wings, who finished second overall this season, finally parlayed their veteran experience into playoff success against a young team that took another postseason of lumps.
Coach Mike Babcock recounted the list of disrespectful perceptions that fueled Detroit’s rise this spring.
“You don’t get picked to be very good, and then you’re pretty good through the regular season, and then someone says you’re not a playoff team,” Babcock said. “We played two big, strong teams and have done well. And now we’re going to get another one (in the Anaheim Ducks).”
Evgeni Nabokov stopped 20 shots for the Sharks, but the best regular season in franchise history ended in another mystifying collapse after San Jose controlled most of the series’ first three games.
“We’re going to look back at this series, and we’re going to kick ourselves probably until training camp next season,” said Joe Thornton, held scoreless in the last two games after scoring 11 points in the Sharks’ first nine postseason contests.