It wasn't pretty, but it counts. The old adage... You have to be good to be lucky. Tonight, the Wings were lucky. This game could have gone either way, and I believe the defining moment was Ozzie's stellar save against Penguins sniper Evgeni Malkin on a breakaway. The Penguins were able to out shoot the Wings 32-30 but a strong portion of that was after Abdelkader scored the 3rd goal 2:46 into the period, and the Big Red Machine went into shutdown mode from there on. Not bad for a 4th liner who played 5:10 all game.
Once Pittsburgh pulled their goaltender Hossa had a scoring chance but shot wide, and Zetterberg picked up the puck on his backhand, and appeared to have a clean shot on net, but opted for a pass to Hossa. I could be mistaken (it happens often) but it looked like Z was trying to get Hossa a goal against his former team, and most importantly a goal that didn't come in a game 4.
It was nice to see Lidstrom back out there, and was dominant against the likes of Crosby and Malkin. Crosby finished without a point, and Maklin picked up an assist on the Fedotenko goal. Once again, his ability and talent tends to get overlooked, as he could have easily been one of the three stars of this game. The officials seemed to let the players play, and didn't call a penalty during the first or third period. In total only 3 penalties were called (2 against Detroit, 1 against Pittsburgh) despite a few questionable plays on both sides that could/should have been called a penalty.
All in all, we'll take the win, rest up and come back in less than 24 hours to do it all again in game 2. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
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