*I’ve had two high ankle sprains and let’s just say they are not of the highly skilled hockey variety. My friends will definitely attest to that. One was obviously bad ice and even the great Sullecram would agree with that. The other was just depressing. I slipped on the ice as I was pushing the net to the Zamboni driver. Insert Laughter here! Not fun to recover from either!
The Red Wings had the 5th ranked power play and were 17th on the penalty kill during the regular season. In the first round the power play was 4 for 15 and the penalty was the worst in the first round at 66% giving up 6 goals on 18 power plays to the Phoenix Coyotes. They better fix that against a powerful San Jose team. Getting Zetterberg back will definitely help.
San Jose had a tough, physical series with their in-state rivals, the Los Angeles Kings, but ended up winning the series in 6 games. They had one of the greatest comebacks in NHL Playoff history when they came back from being down 4-0 in Game 3 and winning in overtime 6-5. You can’t stop watching games in the playoffs. They got a lot of big goals in the first round. Pavelski gets the game-winner in overtime in game 1 and the game-tying goal in game 3 so Devin Setoguchi can win the game in overtime. Joe Thornton does the unthinkable and scores a goal in the playoffs to win the series in overtime in game 6. They got big series performances from Ryan Clowe, Logan Couture and Ian White. They also got big contributions from Kyle Wellwood, Torrey Mitchell and Jason Demers. The one player that didn’t have a good series was goalie Antti Niemi. He had a 3.99 GAA and an .863 save percentage. He’ll have to step it up in this series or it will be on to the golf course for San Jose. There’s probably a lot of nice courses in San Jose.
San Jose boasts the 3rd ranked power play but the 24th ranked penalty kill from the regular season. In the first round the power play was ineffective going 2 for 23 in 6 games and the penalty kill was right where it was in the regular season at about 79%. That power play needs to become more effective for them to have success in this series.
Tale of the Tape on the Left-Handed Stick:
Goaltending – San Jose – slight edge to the Sharks because Niemi won the Cup last season although he didn’t show up in the first round.
Defense – Detroit
Offense – San Jose
Power Play – San Jose
Penalty Kill – Detroit
Coaching – Detroit – Babcock is the difference here. McLellan is definitely a good coach and beat the Wings last year so this could be even.
This is also a pretty even series and could go either way really. You have to wonder how quickly Zetterberg can get his game back and mesh with the rest of his team right away. Also, you always wonder if rest for a team is a good thing or if it will take them awhile to get their game back as well. The Sharks managed to score over 3 goals a game and that included 2 games where they only scored one goal total so they had 19 goals in 4 games and of course they won those. Detroit actually led the first round with a 4.50 goals per game average so they have the ability to score as well. Niemi has had great numbers against Detroit this season and Howard has struggled this season when facing San Jose.
I expect San Jose to get better performances out of Heatley, Marleau and Niemi so I’m going to go with San Jose in this series.
San Jose in 6
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Robb Dahlen
BRING THE CLUTTER!
