For Staggered Red Wings, It’s No Time to Look Back

The Detroit Red Wings’ practice is history and Steve Yzerman is nowhere to be found on this rainy Friday at a suburban practice rink.

Neither is Brendan Shanahan.

Red Wing Coach Scotty Bowman hasn’t spoken to either of his injured superstars recently and has no updates to offer on their conditions. Bowman only knows that neither was fit to skate Friday and neither will play in today’s pivotal Game 5 of a best-of-seven playoff series against the Kings.

Aloof in the best of times, Bowman’s mood seems to fit the gray weather outside the Troy Sports Center. His answers are quicker and closer to the point than usual.

Past mistakes are acknowledged and defiant words are spoken all around the dressing room. Suddenly, and quite remarkably, the Red Wings seem vulnerable.

After bagging the first two games of the series at Joe Louis Arena, the Red Wings have lost their swagger after dropping Games 3 and 4 at Staples Center. Their invincible aura has been dented, their pride wounded.

In hindsight, perhaps the Red Wings were able to get by in Games 1 and 2 on adrenaline and experience while playing before enthusiastic home crowds at “the Joe,” where they haven’t lost since Dec. 27. The Red Wings didn’t seem to miss Yzerman, who has a sprained left ankle and (reportedly) a broken left index finger, or Shanahan, who has a broken bone in his left foot.

But at the first hint of adversity, the Red Wings crumpled like the front end of an old clunker. At no point was the void in leadership as apparent as in the closing moments of Game 4 on Wednesday. Without Yzerman, the Red Wings’ captain for 15 seasons, and without the steadying influence of Shanahan, the team looked lost.

Holding a 3-0 lead with a little more than seven minutes to play, the Red Wings lost their smarts. Martin Lapointe took two needless penalties and Scott Thomas and Jozef Stumpel scored power-play goals to kick-start a King rally that produced a 4-3 overtime victory.

Asked Friday if he believed taking a timeout could have stemmed the waves of Kings racing at his team’s net late in Game 4, Bowman said, “No, I don’t think so.”

Moments earlier, Bowman had said of Game 4, “That game is done. Everybody has written about it. You don’t need me to comment.”

Not to be overlooked was the Red Wings’ third-period fade in Game 3 on Sunday. Having rallied from a one-goal deficit late in the second period, Detroit seemed poised to take the lead in the final 20 minutes. It never happened. Instead, Stumpel redirected defenseman Mathieu Schneider’s shot into the back of the net for the go-ahead goal and a 2-1 King victory.

In the two games at Staples, the youthful Kings outscored the battle-tested Red Wings, 5-0, in the third period and overtime.

“You’re embarrassed,” Darren McCarty said of the Red Wings, whose average age is a playoff high of more than 30. “You’re angry. Whatever way you can describe it. You feel a little bit humiliated.”

This humiliation will be nothing compared to the heat the Red Wings will feel if they bomb out in Game 5 today. This is Hockeytown, after all.

“The best thing . . . is that it isn’t the last game,” McCarty said. “You can go out and redeem yourself. I wish we didn’t have to go through this, but if it makes us stronger, so be it.”

This would seem to be the perfect moment for center Sergei Fedorov to step in and save the day for the Red Wings.

Fedorov did so in Game 1, scoring one goal and setting up two others after Yzerman was sidelined because of a bum ankle after only 5 minutes 58 seconds of ice time. He did it again in Game 2, scoring once and setting up a goal when neither Yzerman nor Shanahan could play. However, Fedorov was blanked in Game 3 and had only an assist in Game 4.

“The other guys have to step up,” McCarty said.

Five-on-five play has been a concern in this series and will be again today. The Kings lead in even-strength goals, 7-5, but Detroit is eight for 22 on the power play.

Goaltending is another issue. Chris Osgood, who shut out the Kings in Game 2, was merely average in Game 3 and downright lousy in the closing minutes of Game 4.

Thomas scored on a bang-bang play while the Kings were on a power play, so we’ll let that one pass without comment. But Stumpel’s goal, which was intended to be a centering pass from along the goal line, shouldn’t have gone into the net. The puck struck Osgood’s right pad and squeezed its way between the pad and the goal post.

And Osgood was hopelessly out of position on Bryan Smolinski’s tying goal and Eric Belanger’s overtime winner.

Detroit’s defense corps is another sore subject. Nicklas Lidstrom probably will win the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman. But there’s nothing special about the rest of the Red Wing defensemen.

Chris Chelios is 39, Larry Murphy 40. Plus, Chelios is still smarting from a broken left thumb that kept him from playing in Game 1.

Jiri Fischer is a youngster. Todd Gill would look good only by, say, Mighty Duck standards. Mathieu Dandenault is a converted forward. The less said of Steve Duchesne the better.

“We didn’t like what happened to us in Game 4, but you do what you can to be prepared for the next one,” Murphy said. “I know L.A. is going to use the motivation they got from Game 4 going into Game 5. We’ll use adversity and that backs-against-the-wall mentality to motivate us.”