Tonight, at the Honda Center, the Anaheim Ducks will look to conclude the series and the Detroit Red Wings will try to stay alive for one more game in what has been a fairly back and forth series.
It's pretty obvious as to why Detroit has been struggling as a whole to win games... guys like Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg haven't been leading the offense. Sure, it's great when they don't score and the team still wins (5-0 in Game 3), but you can't always count on your support players to do all the work when the stars are getting marked well by the opposition defense. Between the two talented forwards, there are 18 selections made (11 & 7, respectively), so it's pretty key for a few teams' success for them to score as well. It isn't like they haven't been playing well, but they have been stymied by the goaltending of J-S Giguere. If Todd Bertuzzi can get a goal or two here in Game 6 and make it look like he's supposed to be there, then the Red Wings will have an even greater chance at winning. In Game 5, the Ducks seemed to carry the puck and keep it deep in the Red Wings zone, which seemed to take away from the Red Wings' puck possession game... something they should rectify in Game 6. If they can keep control of the puck, then chances will come pretty quickly.
Anaheim will try and close it out at home, which should be a great advantage in itself, but another trip to overtime would be an even greater advantage, as J-S Giguere has only lost once in overtime in the playoffs through his career. It's no wonder he won the Conn Smythe in the Finals against New Jersey, he carried the Ducks on his wings that year. Tonight, it should be the same thing. Giguere and his defense corps will looked upon to keep the Ducks afloat. Expect big minutes again from Chris Pronger, Scott Niedermayer and Francois Beauchemin tonight... at least one them will be on the ice through the entire game. The scoring on the other hand has been a little weak in the series amongst most of the of players... Teemu Selanne leads the skaters in pool points with 6, while Ryan Getzlaf and Scott Niedermayer each have 5... then there are a couple 3-point players and it kinda goes down from there. There needs to be a few more points spread upon the Corey Perry's and Andy McDonald's, so you may want to keep an eye on them to finally breakthrough tonight.
All in all, the Red Wings are really in tough tonight... behind the 8-ball, if you will. The Ducks were the Hockey News pick to win the Stanley Cup, back in September, but I think they fluked out on this one. Granted, they also picked Crosby to win the scoring race. Huh. Oh well. the Ducks were supposed to be the team to beat and now they are. If they can dictate the tempo of the game, then Giguere shouldn't be challenged too much, but don't count out those Red Wings. They did win a bunch of games in the regular season and it wasn't just because they were in a weaker division. It should be a doozy of a game tonight... who needs fresh air and sunlight?Technorati Tags
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