Backed Up by The Wall
Not too many people are giving Carolina much of a chance against the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals, which begin tonight at Joe Louis Arena.
That does not mean the Hurricanes feel the same way. Not in this year of upsets. The New England Patriots, Arizona Diamondbacks and Senegal were all major underdogs but that did not stop them from winning.
Carolina’s biggest problem is that the Red Wings know this too.
“I told the team it’s not about being overconfident,” Detroit Coach Scotty Bowman said on Monday. “It is about how you are to play when the game starts ... they are going to face a team that had 27 overtime games during the season; they have had 18 playoff games.
“When people say this team is better than this team; it doesn’t mean a darn thing. You have to go and do it. I have been on both sides ... We have swept the last two times [in Stanley Cup final wins over Washington and Philadelphia] but we also got swept [by New Jersey] in ’95.”
It’s easy to see why the Red Wings are so heavily favored.
Detroit is an Original Six NHL franchise with arguably the league’s largest following.
In contrast, Carolina’s history is short and sweet.
The Hurricanes were an original World Hockey Assn. franchise founded in 1972 and based in Boston as the New England Whalers. The team later moved to Springfield, Mass., then became the Hartford Whalers when the franchise joined the NHL in 1979. Then in 1997, owner Peter Karmanos moved the team to North Carolina and changed the name to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Whereas Detroit has won nine Stanley Cups and has reached the finals 22 times, the Hurricanes have never come close to a championship.
In fact, the franchise’s most famous player is Gordie Howe, who began his NHL career in Detroit in 1946 and finished it with the Whalers in 1980, at age 52.
But the way Carolina captain Ron Francis sees it, history has to start somewhere.
“I think you have to have success to earn that respect,” said Francis, who broke into the NHL with Hartford in 1981. “You look back a short while ago, people used to laugh at the New Jersey franchise and look where they are today.
“I think as a team and as an organization and our city that we want to continue to make steps in the right direction and I think we’re starting to do that the last couple of years, and certainly the more success we have, the more respect we’ll get. So it’s up to us to go out there and play as hard as we can and try to generate more success.”
The Hurricanes understand that pulling off an upset will be easier said than done.
They have not won in Detroit since the 1989-90 season, when they were still the Whalers. They are 4-16 against the Red Wings in the last 10 years, including two losses this season.
The Hurricanes finished the regular season with 91 points--good enough to win the Southeast Division but not good enough to even qualify for the playoffs had they been in the Western Conference. They know that the best way to get the respect they desire is to upset Detroit, which had the league’s best record and 25 more points than Carolina.
“We want to be winners and respect comes from winning, so it all ties together, one way or another,” said Carolina goaltender Arturs Irbe, who has a playoff-best 1.41 goals-against average and a .927 save percentage. “Win, and then everything else will come.”
Carolina begins Game 1 tonight a much different team than the one the Red Wings faced twice before Thanksgiving. The Hurricanes can play defense and their confidence is high after rolling through the Eastern Conference with playoff wins over New Jersey, Montreal and Toronto.
The turning point for the Hurricanes came when they traded defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh to Florida.
“Ozolinsh was like a riverboat gambler who was more of an end-to-end rusher,” said Detroit winger Brendan Shanahan, who played for Hartford early in his career. “Then they brought in Sean Hill, who is an effective offensive player and pretty steady defensive man as well, and [Bret] Hedican, who is a solid, reliable defenseman. That just settled things down for them and that’s why you saw a lot of low-scoring games. It hasn’t just been their goaltending.”
But Carolina will face a much tougher offense in the Red Wings, who have a lineup boiling over with goal scorers.
With a majority of players remaining from the Stanley Cup championship teams of 1997 and 1998, Detroit does not have a problem scoring. Just ask Colorado, which was blitzed, 7-0, Friday in the most lopsided Game 7 in NHL history.
The Red Wings have depth and balance with four interchangeable lines. Steve Yzerman, Brendan Shanahan, Sergei Fedorov, Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille, the list of scorers goes on and on. Darren McCarty, who often skates on the fourth line, scored four goals against the Avalanche in the Western Conference finals.
“The Red Wings are a puck possession team and if you are in the wrong position all of the time, they are just going to pass it around and have the puck all night,” Carolina forward Jeff O’Neill said.
For Carolina to make this a competitive series, Irbe is going to have to consistently make big saves. Given a chance to win his job back after being replaced by Kevin Weekes early in the playoffs, Irbe has been a rock.
The Hurricanes are hoping that Irbe has the same effectiveness against Detroit that he had in 1994 playing for San Jose. Irbe was magnificent in leading the Sharks to a shocking seven-game, first-round win over the Red Wings, who finished with the most points in the conference that season.
“We have a competitive nature and we want to win,” Irbe said. “We want to show that we can battle and win the ultimate prize.”
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
*--* Carolina Hurricanes vs. Detroit Red Wings Carolina facts: 35-26-16-5, Eastern Conference champion, seeded No. 3 Detroit facts: 51-17-10-4, Western Conference champion, seeded No. 1 Head to head: Detroit 2-0 Series preview: Goaltender Dominik Hasek, winger Luc Robitaille and defenseman Steve Duchesne are three Red Wings who have never played on a championship team. Their enthusiasm and the leadership of captain Steve Yzerman and Chris Chelios have been the driving force behind Detroit’s playoff run. Throw in proven players such as Brendan Shanahan, Brett Hull, Sergei Fedorov, Tomas Holmstrom, Darren McCarty and Igor Larionov and the Red Wings look unbeatable. But Carolina has relished in an underdog role throughout the playoffs. Coach Paul Maurice has got his players working together and the Hurricanes’ suffocating defense has already frustrated New Jersey, Montreal and Toronto in the playoffs What Detroit needs to do to win: Listen to everything Coach Scotty Bowman says because when it comes to winning Stanley Cups, he’s the master. Bowman has won eight NHL championships as a coach and one as a general manager. His Red Wings dominated the league during the season, but they’ve been tested in the playoffs. The Red Wings will pressure the Hurricanes all over the ice and have to make the most out of their power-play opportunities. Shanahan, Robitaille and Hull can’t afford to go through any more mini-slumps What Carolina needs to do to win: The Hurricanes can’t allow Detroit to score first. They may be able to still win if both teams have a difficult time scoring, but the Hurricanes don’t have enough offense to come from behind against the Red Wings. Sami Kapanen and Jeff O’Neill have to produce offensively every night. Detroit is too good to rely on one scoring line, plus the Hurricanes’ BBC line of Bates Battaglia, Rod Brind’Amour and Erik Cole were shut down pretty well by Toronto in the Eastern Conference Finals. Goaltender Arturs Irbe can’t give up any easy goals. He has to be sharp at all times and expect the Red Wings to launch a ton of shots at him Key injuries: DET: C Steve Yzerman (knee, day to day). Goaltender’s postseason record: DET: Dominik Hasek (12-6). CAR: Arturs Irbe (9-4), Kevin Weekes (3-2)
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*--* PLAYOFF NUMBERS Teams DETROIT CAROLINA Goals 58 40 Goals Against 40 29 Power Play 16 of 74 (21.6%) 14 of 79 (17.7%) Penalty killing 68 of 80 (85%) 59 of 71 (83.1%) Save Percentage 910 942 Short-handed goals 6 0 Third period goals 17 16 Stanley Cup rings: Det: Steve Yzerman, Tomas Holmstrom, Igor Larionov, Brendan Shanahan, Darren McCarty, Kirk Maltby, Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Kris Draper and Mathieu Dandenault (two each), Chris Chelios, Brett Hull and Uwe Krupp (one each). Car: Ron Francis and Aaron Ward (two each), Martin Gelinas and Jeff Daniels (one each) Players with +10 points: Det: Yzerman (19), Shanahan (16), Hull (15), Fedorov (14), Lidstrom (13), Chelios (11). Car: Battaglia (14), Francis (13) Brind’Amour (11) Prediction: Carolina has to have a lot of things go right in order to have a chance to win the series. There’s a big difference between shutting down the offenses of New Jersey, Montreal and Toronto, compared to the Red Wings. The Hurricanes may be able to punish the Red Wings down low but they have to be able to keep the puck to do it. Detroit’s ability to score in transition will be a concern for the Hurricanes, who will have enough problems dealing with Hasek. Detroit in six Lonnie White
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