Shanahan, Red Wings Profit the Most in Night of Returns

There were comebacks within the comebacks, so many dramatic events that they almost blurred into one frenetic wave of emotion.

On the night St. Louis Blues’ defenseman Chris Pronger returned from a frightening incident of cardiac arrhythmia to a roaring ovation at the Kiel Center and teammate Al MacInnis returned from a two-game absence caused by a pulled groin muscle, it was the Detroit Red Wings who had one comeback more. And that was enough to give them a 3-2 double-overtime victory Tuesday and a 2-1 lead in the teams’ Western Conference semifinal.

“It’s nice to be appreciated and loved, but it’s a tough day right now,” said Pronger, who blacked out Sunday after being hit in the chest by a puck and was hospitalized overnight in Detroit. He had worn a heart monitor for the previous 24 hours and was cleared to play by club physicians only an hour before game time.

“It’s a tough way for it to end,” added Pronger, who played a game-high 41:35. “I felt better in the fifth period than the fourth.”

MacInnis scored both St. Louis goals--the second a blast from the red line that skipped past Detroit goalie Chris Osgood with 54.4 seconds left in regulation time--but he was driven back to the locker room in pain and didn’t see Brendan Shanahan’s game-winner. Team officials said MacInnis had suffered from cramps, not a recurrence of his groin injury.

Tuesday represented a comeback of sorts for Shanahan too. Back in the city that had adored him for four years before he was traded to Hartford for Pronger, he silenced the capacity crowd of 20,621 when he took a clever backhand pass from Igor Larionov and ripped a wrist shot past Grant Fuhr 11:12 into the second sudden-death period.

“[Fuhr] had made a few good saves on me already in the series and I was wondering what it was going to take,” Shanahan said. “This would have been a really big win for them and a big momentum shift.’

MacInnis kept the Blues in a game they hardly deserved to be in, so thoroughly were they outplayed. The only area in which they could claim superiority was goaltending--arguably the most important aspect, anyway. Fuhr was credited with 42 saves, including 10 in the first overtime period.

Detroit had scored first, 3:10 into the game. Winger Darren McCarty, a right-handed shooter, was on the left side when he unleashed a shot that eluded Fuhr for his second playoff goal.

MacInnis brought the Blues even at 9:15 of the first period. With Detroit defenseman Jamie Macoun serving an interference penalty Steve Duchesne found MacInnis standing about 15 feet in from the blue line and MacInnis ripped a shot that was so hard, it rocketed back out of the net.

The line of Vyacheslav Kozlov, Sergei Fedorov and Tomas Holmstrom has been the Red Wings’ most productive in the playoffs, and the trio retained that distinction when Holmstrom scored at 1:36 of the second period to give Detroit a 2-1 lead.

MacInnis’ second goal was the most unlikely. No doubt remembering the lesson drummed into him when he was in the peewee ranks, MacInnis shot the puck on goal from the red line instead of just dumping it into the zone. He was rewarded when the puck took an unexpected hop on its way to the net and handcuffed Osgood, slipping between his glove and his body.

“I was going to play it with my pad but it started rising, and I knew I was in trouble,” Osgood said. “After the goal I wasn’t saying, ‘Oh, my God,’ or replaying the goal. I just felt I was going to be unbeatable in overtime.”

They very nearly were beaten 9:49 into overtime, when another long shot--this one by Craig Conroy--got past Osgood. However, the puck hit the left post, skimmed the goal line and appeared to have partly crossed the line before striking Osgood’s stick and the right post and caroming out. The play was reviewed, but since the puck did not cross the goal line in its entirety, the goal did not count.