Red Wings 1-2 Stars: Conference Finals, Game 5

Just a short one from me today as I get this sick taste out of my mouth. Typos expected.

Pretty much in every place that I've read about this game is the observation that the Wings simply didn't show up for this game. They looked out of it, lackadasical at times, and entirely clueless as to the fact that a win put them in the Stanley Cup Finals. I'm not going to go that far -- I'll reserve that for a November game against the Blackhawks later this year when I'm around 100% certain that that's the case. To me they looked waaay too tight. Maybe it's just the sane portion of my brain convincing me that there's no fucking way that they'd take a mental day off in a game of this magnitude, I don't know. But the scary thing was that this was something I noticed within the first two minutes of the game. Never a good sign. The next thing that stood out was just how slow they were hitting the blue line. Instead of blowing through the zone like usual they were tip toe-ing their way in like they were weary of land mines or something. They just looked too damn timid, and I have absolutely no understanding for how that can happen against a team (and a goaltender) that you've owned this series and in the past. Other thoughts...

- God Chelios looked awful. He's looked alternately wizard-like and inept in these playoffs. Shit, he's looked alternately amazingly good and bad in just the last three games.

- Detroit outshot Dallas by 18, but if you watched the game you realize that it didn't mean much. The Wings missed what felt like 150 shots, and not enough of their 39 that hit the goal were ideal chances. Dallas did a good job of keeping the action to the outside.

- Can a brother get a rebound?

- The way that they scored both of their goals made me a little queezy. Iffy line changes and Marty Turco acting like a 3rd defensemen, picking up 1 assist.

- Holmstrom took a senselessly awful penatly late in the 3rd, hitting a member of the Stars' bench. I don't have enough time to describe how dissappointing that felt to witness on replay.

- This game was about as disheartening as any that I've watched as a Wing fan. Is Lidstrom partially to blame, as captain, for not having the team fully prepared? If that's the case, go somewhere else because I can't bring myself to write even one negative thing about him. He could kill my whole family and as long as he did it in a proffesional, positionally sound manor I'd have nothing but kudos for the guy.

- Was the ice fucked up or something? I know the team looked really wound up and stuff but they were missing passes left and right. All of them -- not just a few guys.

- I'm not going to go over the edge and say that it's going to feel like a complete loss if we have to win this thing in 7, but if that happens and the Pens or Flyers beat us in the next round, a shit-ton of talk will be had about this series. Think 'Pistons-Cavs in '06', where Detroit could've put Cleveland away in 4 or 5, and instead had to come from behind 3-2 to win the series, then looked out of gas against Miami. I don't even want to contemplate a Game 7 for Wednesday. I think it would literally kill me.

- Lastly..........WE NEED FRANZEN!!!

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Tigers won. Yahoo. I'll be saving Tigers comments til after the Pistons/Wings seasons are over, most likely. It's just too much of a chore for me to talk about their woeful ways while there's two massive playoff runs going on.