Sharks Prevail, Red Wings Are Out

It was quite the battle for seven games and the Red Wings and Sharks really did find an excellent pinnacle game to decide it all. The Sharks did end up recovering from their 3-game losing streak in this series to put together a great Game Seven, knocking off the Red Wings, 3-2 in regulation time.

This game really did have a lot of things going for it... the Sharks did what they needed to, taking an early lead and then adding on it, the Red Wings were able to keep it close with plenty of shots on Antti Niemi, an insurance marker from Patrick Marleau was clutch, as Pavel Datsyuk scored a dazzling goal to keep this game close into the last half of the 3rd period. High drama met with great sighs of relief, as the fans in San Jose can breathe a little easier... until the Conference Finals start of course.

In a 3-2 game, there wasn't a great deal of big players for the playoff pool, but there were a few. Dan Boyle had a pair of assists, Patrick Marleau scored the winner and Antti Niemi made 38 saves for the win.

The Red Wings were already hurting for bodies and during Game Seven, both Todd Bertuzzi and Dan Cleary were knocked out of the game with upper-body injuries and didn't return, which also didn't help the Red Wings going forward. On the bright side, they won't have to worry about these injuries any more.

What has the elimination done to the landscape of the pool?  Well, I'm glad you asked.  The Red Wings being out of the playoffs meant that 171 selections were taken from the pool, the most selections taken out of the Western Conference this year.  The Canucks and Sharks were the most popular teams in the West, so it just looks right that the Red Wings were eliminated.

The most popular players dropped out were Dan Cleary with 34 picks, Nicklas Lidstrom with 32 pick and Brian Rafalski with 27 picks.  Having picks in the bottom row of the Western Conference like this suggested that they were only going to make it into the second round this year.  With Detroit out of the picture, only 17 teams in the pool have the maximum amount of players going into the Conference Finals, with 12.

As for points, Pavel Datsyuk led the team in pool points with 15, followed by Jimmy Howard with 14 and Valtteri Filppula with 10.  Datsyuk currently leads Box 2 in scoring, Filppula leads Box 5, Cleary leads Box 7 with 7 points, Niklas Kronwall shares the lead in Box 10 with 6 points, so if you have any of these Wings, your pool team is likely in pretty good shape, thanks to a good effort from Detroit.