Red Wings Back and Through

Just in case you had much for doubts, the Red Wings have finally done the deed and eliminated the Dallas Stars. The Stars put up a valiant effort in the Western Conference Finals and brought the series to six games. Nevertheless, it was the better team that took the Conference Final and will now meet the Penguins for the Stanley Cup, starting on Saturday.

Dallas were the underdogs through every series they played in, especially when they went down three games to the high-octane Red Wings, but they proved everyone wrong, or in a pool sense, some people right. An extra two games in the series did wonders for the 42 selections that were eventually eliminated, but a lot of the top teams had them, which was key to their success.

Pool favourite Star, Mike Modano (Box 5) was taken 10 times and was the box best, so you probably should have taken him... maybe. We'll see when we do the all-star team of the playoffs. Marty Turco (Box 12), the team's best pool performer, wasn't taken at all, but definitely should have been. The team also had good playoff seasons from Mike Ribeiro (Box 1) and Brendan Morrow (Box 2) with 17 points each... who may have been overshadowed by the Red Wing counterparts, but just to let you know.

But that's it. The giant killers were stomped on and the Cinderella Story is over.

It was Pavel Datsyuk (Box 1) that scored the winner that finally eliminated the Stars and surprisingly, it was only his first one of the playoffs. Datsyuk, unofficially, finished the series with 7 points, which, unofficially, was the second best Red Wings player in the series. Datsyuk has had a pretty good playoff season, but having only one winning goal almost makes him unworthy of the second box spot. Oh well.

The Red Wings won yet another Clarence Campbell Trophy and leading the charge for the team has been Henrik Zetterberg (Box 1) being the best forward, Nicklas Lidstrom (Box 8) being the best defenseman and Chris Osgood (non-pool) doing his job and standing in front of the net. Yeah, okay, he isn't in the pool, so he can't get all the kudos he may deserve, but that's head coach Mike Babcock's fault for giving the Sherpa the impression that Dominik Hasek (Box 12) would be the starting goalie through the playoffs, having started the first four games.

Plenty of teams believed in the Red Wings, 144 selections said so. So, here they are... the actual Western Conference favourites are now in the Finals.