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Star power Wings finally get production from top linesPosted: Thursday May 23, 2002 5:53 PMUpdated: Friday May 24, 2002 2:32 AM DENVER (AP) -- The Detroit Red Wings finally got some production from their top players. That could be trouble for the Colorado Avalanche for the rest of the NHL's Western Conference finals. The Red Wings relied on their lesser-known players in the first two games against the defending Stanley Cup champions and Fredrik Olausson's first playoff goal in 10 years gave Detroit a 2-1 overtime victory and a 2-1 series lead. The next game is Saturday night in Colorado. "We looked fresher. I don't know for what reason," Bowman said. "I think because we played our players a little differently. Maybe we weren't leaning on certain guys. It seemed our lines were better. We were kind of spread out and I don't know the reason for it." But Detroit had strong performances from all four lines for the first time in the series. "We said we had to play four lines and I thought we skated a lot better," Detroit coach Scotty Bowman said. "I told the team that the way Colorado's been skating, that's what you've got to do."
Detroit forwards Luc Robitaille, Sergei Fedorov, Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan combined for 26 goals and 13 assists in the first two rounds against Vancouver and St. Louis, but did not score in the first two games against Colorado. In Game 3, Fedorov had an assist on Robitaille's tying goal in the third period after a shot from the left circle bounced off Patrick Roy, and Yzerman had the first assist on Olausson's game-winner. The four players combined for 17 of Detroit's 42 shots, including five from Shanahan and a game-high seven from Fedorov. "It was nice to see Luc get the goal and it was nice for me to get a good shot on Patrick," said Fedorov, who has two goals and 11 assists in the playoffs. "It felt like we were urgent. We were really focused on the things we had to do." The Avalanche were hit with the same inconsistency that has plagued them throughout the playoffs. Colorado turned to a more defensive style during the regular season with Peter Forsberg and Milan Hejduk out with injuries. Once the two forwards returned at the start of the playoffs, the Avalanche have switched back and forth between being defensive and a more wide-open style.
The result has been wild fluctuations between games. The Avalanche opened their first-round series with Los Angeles by scoring nine goals in the first two games but scored four in their next four. Colorado scored three goals in a loss to San Jose in Game 2 of the conference semifinals but came back with eight in the next game. The Avalanche played a wide-open style in the first game against Detroit in Game 1, a 5-3 loss, but became more defensive in a 4-3 overtime victory the next game. In Game 3, Colorado allowed just two goals, but it would have been a lot more if Roy hadn't stopped 40 shots. "I think it's pretty clear that we had no business being in it," Colorado coach Bob Hartley said. "Patrick gave us every chance possible in the book to go home with a victory that we didn't deserve. The Red Wings outplayed us and outworked us, plain and simple." One problem for the Avalanche has been their tendency to sit on a lead. Colorado has led Detroit by a goal seven times in the series, but the only lead to stand up was Chris Drury's game-winner in overtime of Game 2. Colorado went up 1-0 in Game 3 on a goal by Rob Blake, but dropped back into a defensive posture until Luc Robitaille scored early in the third. By then, the Red Wings had the momentum and it carried over into overtime. Detroit outshot Colorado 25-9 in the second and third periods, and had seven shots in overtime before Olausson's game-winner. "They definitely took the play to us," Colorado defenseman Greg de Vries said. "We got burned trying to hold a 1-0 lead against a team like that." Colorado was 34-0-1 during the regular season when leading after two periods, but has lost three of its last five games in the same situation. |
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