The Hopp Stop

Nice win last night to finish up a strong showing against the Lakers. It’s a bit frustrating to see Boston win, though, given that I think the Pistons should have been there instead. The ‘stones have let at least a couple championships slip through their finger tips. Also, this win should settle questions of whether Western Conference has the best teams. The west is a lot stronger top to bottom, but the best two teams were in the Eastern Conference.

I love the fan from the audience with a Gerard Gallant (#17) jersey. Blast from the past! Makes me think of the day in the 5th grade (’89) when Bob Probert was busted with coke in his underwear crossing into Detroit from Canada; Gallant was a big part of those Wings teams in the late ’80s that helped banish “Dead Things” as a moniker, before the Euro, skill-driven dominance Detroit has enjoyed since the early ’90s.

I looked up Gallant’s stats; he last played in Detroit in 1993. A fan put up a retrospective of his time with the Wings. Dig on 90+ points with 200+ penalty minutes!

So the Detroit Red Wings had a chance to win the Stanley Cup last night at home in Game 5 of the series, but lost 4-3 in the third overtime. It was an incredible game to watch after the first period until the players started tiring noticeably in the second overtime, at which point the quality of play diminished.

The Wings started the game with probably their worst period of hockey since the Nashville series, although in this case the culprits were turnover-prone skaters rather than a leaky goalie. The turnover madness continued for the first two minutes of the second period, when Detroit scored on a somewhat flukey and weak goal. But hey, we’ll take it. And the Wings had to feel lucky that they were only down 2-1. They had been completely outplayed by Pittsburgh up to that point. The only thing keeping them in the game were some strong goaltending from Osgood and a number of missed nets on good chances for the Penguins.

The rest of the second period was evenly matched hockey, with good chances on both sides. From the very beginning of the third period, however, it was all Detroit. Datsyuk made an incredible individual effort to fight through some checks along the boards at the Pittsburgh blue line early in the period, showing great stick strength to maintain the puck, then made a characteristic “How’d he do that?!” move to get in on night. A great finish resulted in only a near-goal, as Pavel hit the crossbar but could not find the net. I was wondering at the time whether it was not to be last night for the Wings, but they continued to pour on the heavy pressure, outshooting Pittsburg by something like 15-2 in the period at one point. The reward was two goals and a lead entering the final five minutes, with the Stanley Cup theirs upon victory.

Right around the time the broadcast showed the Cup handler man polishing the Cup one last time in his white gloves, the Wings downshifted a bit to a more defensive style for those last few minutes. That was the right call given the circumstances, as you do not want to give the opposition a scoring chance due to a defenseman pinching in his offensive zone. Pittsburgh pulled the goalie at approximately the one-minute mark; Zetterberg was skating in center ice with 50 seconds to go and a chance to ice it with an empty-netter, but the checking was too tight and he could not convert. And Pittsburgh gained control in the Detroit zone. And then Pittsburgh scored with 34 seconds left.

Talk about deflating. I’d spent the entire third period tensed up, eyes wide open, from the excitement, the stakes, the dominant performance by the Wings. Ten years ago I probably would have thrown my remote control and then had to go search for the battery cover and the batteries to resume watching the game. After enough sporting fandom disappointments, you just sigh loudly and hope for the best.

The overtimes were entertaining and mostly dominated by the Wings. But shots on goal don’t convert to goal at some pre-determined ratio, so a 57:28 shots edge after 2 overtimes ultimately just means that the disappointment is greater if you do not wind up the winner. The second and third OTs were evenly matched for the most part, once fatigue became evident and the Wings’ spurt from the third period and first OT died out. Apart from outstanding goaltending from Marc-Andre Fleury in the Pittsburgh net, most of note in the overtimes was the horrible, inexplicable officiating. Two more goaltender interference penalties on the Wings after all the laughable interference calls against them this playoff run? In overtime of a Stanley Cup game? And yet the usual interference and grabbing goes uncalled, except for one penalty against the Penguins that was not particularly egregious and did not take place on a key part of the ice.

One hopes that Jiri Hudler is remembered more for his strong game (alongside Filpulla, Franzen and Datsyuk as the class of the Wings forwards last night) than for his lacksadaisical stick control that led to a 4-minute penalty for highsticking in the third OT. How Hudler’s gaffe goes down depends on Game 6 and perhaps Game 7 of this series. After last night, his penalty and the subsequent power play gave Pittsburgh another man advantage, and they converted on this one.

If you haven’t been following the Pistons this year, you may have missed Walter Hermann’s fabulous sense of style. Whenever he’s not dressed for the game (not in uniform), he wears these hilarious suits with huge flowing shirt collars, and lets his hair out like my friend Thu used for formal dances when he had hair down to his shoulders in college. This site has a nice overview of Hermann’s fashion sense during the 2008 playoffs. Must see.

Here’s a photo of Hermann in his Charlottle uni (he was acquired from Charlotte earlier this season):

Here are a couple YouTube videos of clutch Tayshaun blocks against Orlando, pulled from this Fanhouse post. In the first video (game 4, Maurice Evans), I love the Rah-sheed pre-game dancing in the first 10 or 15 seconds of the video. The second video is game 5, Hedo Ugly.

Borders started an interesting e-mail thread on the recent Costas Now show on blogs v. the mainstream media (MSM). DeadSpin.com has the video up here. Short story: Costas and sports book author Buzz Bissinger (“Friday Night Lights” among others) HATE bloggers and assume that blogs exist only to provide vitriol and snark in a glib fashion, with no value add compared to the MSM. I don’t agree. Trying to put sports blogs in a box and assign one label to them is like trying to do that with hedge funds. They come in all kinds, serve many different audiences and some don’t even have audiences. I get more value from the blogs I read than from Sports Illustrated, ESPN the Mag, NY Times, Detroit Free Press, etc. I’d rather keep the blogs and give up reading MSM. So here’s a listing of my favorite blogs.

• MGoBlog. My mainstay for Michigan (U. of) sports news, esp. for football.
• Sunday Morning Quarterback. Great, serious college football site.
• Every Day Should Be Saturday. Hilarious college football blog. Maintains the Fulmer Cup in the offseason, which tracks the criminal infractions of college football programs. I think Missouri is currently leading. Here’s a recent post covering headbutts. I learned from EDSBS that an Oregon player was arrested last year for stealing livestock to have sex with it. Love it.
• Detroit Tigers Weblog. Provides pitchFX analysis of Tigers pitchers and minor league reports, as well as a reasoned take on Tigers’ happenings.
• Detroit Bad Boys, a Pistons blog.
• Baseball Prospectus feed 1 and feed 2. Great stats-focused baseball site. Not sure if this is a blog, but the lines are blurred. Some Baseball Prospectus stories are premium, requiring a membership.
• Buster Olney’s blog at ESPN.com, part of their Insider feature. Hmm, Buster Olney was the Yankees beat writer at the NY Times and wrote a real book published in hardcover format. Crazy Buzz B., where does Buster fit into your world view?
• Rob Neyer’s blog at ESPN.com Insider.
• Hardball Times. Another baseball site. Similar focus to Baseball Prospectus.
• James Mirtle’s hockey blog. He’s the hockey guy at the Toronto Globe & Mail paper.
• TrueHoop blog, which Borders reads. Henry Abbott aggregates a lot of links and provides some insight. I learned about the fascinating William Wesley here.