0404080394
DETROIT FREE PRESS
040408
Thursday, April 08, 2004
METRO FINAL
1A
Photo JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/Detroit Free Press
Why are these men yelling? Because Tomas Holmstrom's deflection early in the
third period gave the Red Wings a 2-1 lead. Robert Lang, left, assisted on
Holmstrom's goal and also scored late in the game.
Manny Legace: 23 saves
Goalie Manny Legace sprawls to make a save as teammate Henrik Zetterberg gets
all tangled up with Nashville's Scott Walker.
MITCH ALBOM FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
GAME 1. DETROIT 3, NASHVILLE 1
Copyright (c) 2004, Detroit Free Press
THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!
LEGACE, THIRD-PERIOD CHARGE EXORCISE THE GHOSTS OF LAST YEAR'S FLOP
There is alone, there is lonesome, and there is the loneliest man in sports.
Manny Legace, the Red Wings' goaltender, went through all three phases
Wednesday night -- and it took him only two minutes.
First, he was alone. After all, he was making his first playoff start at age
31. He'd gone from "second backup" to "first backup" to "only healthy option."
Eleven years in professional hockey, and finally, the net is yours? You face
such moments by yourself, alone, and alone he was, to start the game.
Then came lonesome. This was 16 seconds into the contest, when a big young
Predator named Adam Hall -- out of Michigan State, of all places -- fired the
first shot off Legace, who lost track of the puck as it scooted underneath
him, and he inadvertently offered the rebound right back to Hall, a
marshmallow on a stick. The kid took a second swing. Goal? Sixteen seconds in?
People weren't even in their seats yet!
"It was not," Legace would say, "the start I was hoping for."
Lonesome was the word.
Then, less than 90 seconds later, Nashville's Steve Sullivan was awarded a
penalty shot, a free and unencumbered run at the goalie. And suddenly Legace
was staring down a one-on-one challenge, the loneliest man in sports.
Make no mistake. That moment was a turning point. "Huge," coach Dave Lewis
would call it. For had Legace succumbed, as many goalies do, had he dropped
his lance and surrendered a 2-0 lead, every old ghost in the Joe Louis Arena
rafters would be swirling around the Red Wings bench. The already tense Wings
would be facing a hangover-sized deja vu, and Lewis would be faced with an
important goaltending decision before his nerves even had time to get jangled.
Instead, this is what happened: Legace pounded his gloves together like a
prizefighter bouncing out of his corner, and he came up as Sullivan came
bearing down. He forced a quick shot that went wide. The crowd exhaled, then
fell into a relieved chant of "MAN-NY! MAN-NY!"
And this much was clear: If the Wings were going to blow another playoff
opener, it wasn't going to be because the goaltending fell apart.
Leg up.
"I guess I would rather give one up in the first 16 seconds than in the last
16," Legace said, after stopping 23 shots and winning Game 1 of this Western
Conference quarterfinal by a 3-1 score. "I was hoping for an easy couple of
minutes to start it out. But it was like 'Shot, rebound, goal.' Welcome to the
playoffs."
No Hasek, no Joseph
Do you realize this was the first time in three seasons that the Wings have
won their playoff opener? And even this one wasn't assured until the final
period, when Kris Draper put the first puck past Nashville's Tomas Vokoun, and
then Tomas Holmstrom redirected a second puck past him, and then, the icing on
the cake, Robert Lang scored as he fell to his knees, a nifty "here it is, no,
here it is, no, there it is behind you" move that shook off any chance of a
Nashville comeback.
But while those goals represented the digits on this night, the story of the
game was in the Red Wings' net -- and was always going to be. There is really
no way to put into perspective the weirdness of Legace starting this game.
From a team that began the season with two super-rich goaltenders, Dominik
Hasek and Curtis Joseph, the Wings, before the season ended, had become a
depleted and desperate club, needing to call up a reserve from the minors just
to fill the net.
Legace, the original fill-in man, had said all along that he wasn't entitled
to anything, that Hasek and Joseph had earned every stripe. But as the games
added up and his numbers surpassed those of his more famous teammates,
perceptions began to change.
"Manny earned this start," Lewis said just before the game. "We're going to go
with him and hope for the best."
And after that first goal by Hall, they got it. Legace was as good as he
needed to be, and great the handful of times it was demanded. The first
period, when the Wings' defense seemed to still be dressing in the locker
room. Legace made strong stops on Martin Erat and Jeremy Stevenson. He held
his own in traffic and on breakaways. Mostly, when you're going with a fresh
guy in the playoffs, you just don't want him to lose it for you.
Legace made sure he didn't.
"My nerves really didn't stop until the final horn," Legace admitted. But when
asked about his accomplishment -- his first NHL playoff victory in net -- he
shrugged.
"I haven't really done anything. We won one game. We have to be ready for
Saturday."
The burden of being No. 1
I have an idea. Instead of the No. 1 seed having to play the No. 8, how about
the reward for the best record is you get to play, I don't know, the 4 seed or
the 5? That way, we get rid of this "Cup or bust" attitude pitted against the
"Just happy to be here" attitude. It's almost a burden for the team with the
best record to play the playoff team with the worst. The Red Wings knew all
season that a Stanley Cup was a realistic goal. The Predators didn't even know
they'd be IN the playoffs until last Saturday night.
You could feel it all night in the building. After last year's sweep by
Anaheim and the previous year's 0-2 start against Vancouver, getting started
is as much a nightmare for Wings fans as it is for an old car on a cold
morning.
The truth is, the Red Wings, a perennially great team with the collective
experience of Methuselah, approach the playoffs like parents starting a long
road trip, checking the luggage, easing into the car seats, buckling the
belts. Meanwhile, their coltish first-round opponents act like kids who just
discovered a sprinkler on a summer lawn -- hey, let's jump in and live it up!
Sometimes, as with any long road trip, the kids take control. On Wednesday
night, that didn't happen, because Legace took control instead. It was a
terrific moment for a good guy who has waited a long time for a moment like
this.
"I'm just here to stop the puck," he said. "I'm not a savior or anything."
He paused.
"I was hoping for an easier first couple of minutes."
He grinned, and we've seen that grin before. It is the grin of a survivor. And
the grin of a man who knows he should be starting the next game as well. The
playoffs, for Wings fans, just got a little less scary, and for Legace, a
little less lonely.
Leg up.
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Catch "The Mitch
Albom Show" 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Also catch "Monday Sports
Albom" 7-8 p.m. Mondays on WJR. To read recent columns by Albom, go to
www.freep.com/index/albom.
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