9602040891
DETROIT FREE PRESS
961114
Thursday, November 14, 1996
METRO FINAL CHASER
1D
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1996, Detroit Free Press
WINGS LOOK LIKE FLAKES NEXT TO THE AVALANCHE
Chris Osgood hit the ice like a paratrooper without a chute. Save! He
snapped to his feet, turned the other way and hit the deck once more. Another
save! He barely caught his breath when the puck came flying at him again,
enemies all around, a shot by Joe Sakic, rejected, a rebound by Peter
Forsberg, slapped away, another rebound, backhanded by Forsberg -- and this
one went past a diving Osgood into the net, red lights flashing, goal,
Colorado.
And all this was in the first three minutes.
Snowed under. If Wednesday was the game in which this year's Wings were
measured against the team that killed their season last year -- the defending
Stanley Cup champions, the Colorado Avalanche -- well, you'll have to dig a
few inches to learn how Detroit did. See that big drift over there? The Wings
are buried somewhere inside it.
This was less a hockey game than a clinic. The Avalanche was so efficient,
I saw IBM guys taking notes. They were so streamlined, they made Uma Thurman
look fat.
This is how simply it worked: Colorado got a power play, it sent guys to
the net and they scored. Hey. What a concept. The Wings would love to try it.
Unfortunately, all the shooting was being done by the visitors. Colorado
was like a rifle range on skates. Remember last year, when the Wings were
exasperated with all the shots and none of the goals?
No such problem Wednesday. They had none of the shots and none of the
goals.
"We can't play like that at home," groaned Scotty Bowman after the 4-1
spanking. "We can't play like that anywhere."
Bowman said his team started too slowly. Of course, that's like saying
your Dodge Intrepid started slowly against a Porsche. What did you expect?
Colorado -- clearly, at this point, the best team in hockey -- had an 11-1
shot advantage in the first seven minutes. Their checking line was more
offensive than the Wings' scoring lines. They had crisp passing, tight defense
and great goaltending.
And you don't want to hear that Colorado is missing three of its stars to
injury, do you?
I didn't think so.
Credit where credit's due
"Were you surprised this wasn't more intense a game?" someone asked
Patrick Roy, the Avalanche goalie, in the locker room after the game.
"Well, we played very well," he said. "And they were flat."
That comes as a surprise considering the nature of this rematch. But then
there were many empty seats when this game began. This, I believe, had as
much to do with villain Claude Lemieux missing as anything else. Had Lemieux
been playing, the vampires in our city would have surely filled the place,
been there early, hoping for blood, guts, maybe a human sacrifice.
But with Lemieux out with a stomach injury, fans obviously didn't think
attendance was mandatory. This is pretty sad, if you ask me -- especially
with as good a team as Colorado is fielding these days. It's the best in the
business. It has the best record.
It has some of the top stars in the league in Sakic, Forsberg and Roy.
Not going to see the Avalanche because Claude Lemieux isn't playing is like
not going to see the Chicago Bulls because Bill Wennington missed the trip.
"I thought they were excellent," said the Wings' captain, Steve Yzerman, a
man who has always showed appreciation for other teams' talent. "They are
clearly the best team we've faced all year. They had us chasing them around
all night.
"It would be good for us to play them more often, because you have to play
sharp and consistent every time you're on the ice.
"Some games we've played so far this year, we've been ahead and maybe we
let up a little bit. You can't do that with this team.
"This was a good wake-up call to show us how far we still have to go."
Wait a second. Did he say wake-up call?
There's good, and then there's great
Wasn't it just a wink ago that the Wings and Avalanche were squaring off
in the conference finals, and the Wings were favored by nearly everyone? How
did the Avalanche get so far ahead so fast?
"Well," said Yzerman, "we made some changes to our team. We brought in
younger players. And we're still coming along. We hope to be where we want to
be a little later in the season."
Meanwhile, the Avalanche players have taken their championship pedigree and
flaunted it. They strut now like a four-star general in full uniform. They are
not climbing anymore, they're defending.
And they're acting as if it's their mountain for a while.
"It's so easy right now," Forsberg said, shaking his head, as if amazed.
"We go out, we get great shots, great goaltending, great movement."
Which is why the Avalanche, a great team, confounded the Wings, a good
team. Maybe this is how it will be all season. Maybe the gap grows even wider.
Or maybe it reverses by the postseason. We can only hope.
For what it's worth, remember that the Wings clobbered the Avalanche last
year during the regular season and lost to it in the playoffs.
"We played them with too much respect tonight," said Brendan Shanahan. "We
played as if they had the Stanley Cup sitting on their bench."
Oh. I was wondering who that tall guy with the funny hat was.
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CHRIS OSGOOD; HOCKEY; RED WINGS; COLUMN