Red Wings Get Some Unlikely Heroes

The Detroit Red Wings are regarded as the NHL’s premier team because they can beat you in so many different ways.

If their top scorers, Sergei Fedorov and Brendan Shanahan, don’t beat you, their defense and role players will. That was the case in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals on Tuesday night when winger Joe Kocur--a non-factor in the Western Conference finals--responded with a goal and defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom added another to help the Red Wings to a 2-1 victory over the Washington Capitals before a sellout crowd of 19,983 at Joe Louis Arena.

With Detroit holding a 31-17 edge in shots on goal, Red Wing goaltender Chris Osgood did not face too much pressure until the third period but he again showed why the Red Wings traded away Mike Vernon, last season’s Conn Smythe Trophy winner, with several big stops to improve to 13-6 in the playoffs.

“I don’t know if we shut them down, I just think that Ozzie played real well and we [scored] with the opportunities we had,” Detroit defenseman Larry Murphy said. “They got more opportunities than we hoped to give them. Their shot total was low, but I think they had a lot more scoring chance than you first think.”

In making their third Stanley Cup finals appearance in four years, the Red Wings realize that the outcome of this series probably will determine their place in league history.

If they win, the Red Wings will become the first team to capture back-to-back titles since the Pittsburgh Penguins won two in a row in 1991 and 1992. A series win would also give them 54 playoff wins over the last four years.

An upset loss to the Capitals, however, and the Red Wings will find themselves being remembered differently. A team good enough to reach the Big Dance but not good enough to be regarded as one of the dynasty teams of the 1990s. Just like the Buffalo Bills in the NFL and the Atlanta Braves in major league baseball.

This type of pressure seemed to affect Detroit early as Washington--which had rolled into the finals with the best road record of the playoffs with seven wins in eight games away from the MCI Center--controlled play.

“I actually thought the first 10 minutes we played quite well and maybe we had a couple of shifts where our No. 1 and No. 2 lines got outplayed by their No. 3 and 4 lines,” Washington Coach Ron Wilson said. “It was really a couple of shifts in the game that made a difference.”

Like most championship teams, the Red Wings used defense to turn the game around. After killing off Washington’s first power play, Detroit-which held Dallas scoreless in 29 of 30 man-advantage situations in the Western Conference finals, was finally able to gain room in the neutral zone to lead to the game’s first two goals.

Rookie winger Tomas Holmstrom, an impact player for the Red Wings throughout the postseason, helped create Detroit’s opening goal when he took a hit along the boards but was able to move the puck into the Washington zone. Teammate Doug Brown continued the play with a backhand pass from the left circle to a hard-charging Kocur, who beat Capital goalie Olaf Kolzig from the top of the crease at 14:04. For Kocur, who did not dress in four of the six games in the Dallas series, it was his fourth goal of the playoffs--a career high.

“[Kocur]’s well rested . . . and he’s playing on a good line,” said Detroit Coach Scotty Bowman, who had Kocur in the lineup in place of Brent Gilchrist, who will miss the finals because of an abdominal and groin injuries.

The Red Wings, who improved to 10-1 when they score first in the playoffs this year, continued to pressure the Capitals and added their second score at 16:18 on nifty goal by Lidstrom, his sixth of the postseason, off an assist from Steve Yzerman. Holmstrom again played a key role in the goal as he helped dig the puck out from behind the Washington goal and then screened Kolzig on Lidstrom’s shot from the point.

After being held to only six shots on goal in the first period, the Capitals went nearly 10 minutes without one in the second and ended up with only four in the period.

But Washington was able to make the most of its rare scoring chances when rookie Richard Zednik powered in a shot from the high slot at 15:57 of the second period.

The closest the Capitals came to sending the game into overtime, however, came late in the third period when Joe Juneau had two opportunities stopped by Osgood.