Red Wings Are Down but Still Have a Prayer

Steve Yzerman’s presence in the otherwise deserted Red Wing locker room Saturday was a statement in itself. Nearly 38 years old, playing on a right knee devoid of cartilage, the Red Wings’ captain usually binds his wounds in the privacy of the trainer’s room and leaves teammates to sum up the team’s plight or prosperity.

Not Saturday, not after the defending Stanley Cup champions squandered a third-period lead and skated off the ice at a rapidly emptying Joe Louis Arena with a 3-2 loss to the Mighty Ducks and a 2-0 deficit in their first-round playoff series. Yzerman knew he had to speak to reporters, to be a touchstone for a team that has played well yet has come away with nothing but frustration and mounting worry.

A year ago, after losing the first two games of their first-round series at home against Vancouver, Yzerman planted himself in nearly the same spot and promised the Red Wings wouldn’t lose. And they didn’t, rallying to win the next four games on the way to their third title in six seasons.

Yzerman made no promises Saturday. He’s aware then was then and now is now, and that the Red Wings face serious concerns as the series shifts to Anaheim for Games 3 and 4 Monday and Wednesday.

They’re a year older, trailing only Methuselah and Gordie Howe. Yzerman and Chris Chelios have more mileage on them and less cartilage. Most significantly, Duck goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere was as forbidding Saturday as he was in his team’s triple-overtime victory Thursday.

“I think we deserve a better fate,” Yzerman said, his knee extended in front of him to display scars of surgeons’ knives and opponents’ sticks. “Despite losing these two games, there’s not a lot we can look at and say, ‘We need to do this or that better.’

“Anaheim is a little more of a defensive-oriented team than the Canucks were. Anaheim is content to play a tight game and play much more of a defense-first game, and that poses different problems for us.”

Insurmountable problems? No one in Detroit’s locker room would say so and, indeed, they might learn how to rattle Giguere or protect leads. Yet, player after player echoed a single theme: They’ve played well, aside from a few lapses. They’ve had more shots than the Ducks, more scoring chances, more traffic around the net.

“We like our game more this year at this point than we did last year,” said Darren McCarty, the rugged right wing on the pivotal but scoreless Grind Line. “We’re not happy.... We can say what we want, that we’ve done some good things, but the bottom line is we haven’t won.”

Nor have they gotten the caliber of goaltending from Curtis Joseph that the Ducks have gotten from Giguere.

The Ducks’ first goal Saturday was stoppable, but Joseph misjudged the angle and let Stanislav Chistov’s shot bounce off his right arm at 7:17 of the first period. Their second goal, a backhander Jason Krog sliced into the upper corner of the net at 13:34 of the third period, was well-crafted but sprang out of opportunism rather than sustained pressure.

“Up until they scored the tying goal,” Brendan Shanahan said, “I don’t think they had a scoring chance in the third period, and that was with 6 1/2 minutes left.”

Steve Thomas’ winner was stoppable too, although Shanahan said Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk had slashed Thomas’ hand and caused the shot to flutter unexpectedly past Joseph’s glove on the far side.

“That’s almost like a deflection,” Shanahan said.

Said Sergei Fedorov: “They don’t have a lot of offense, but the chances they have, they put in the net. We’ve got to eliminate that.”

Just how they will do that remains a mystery to which no Red Wing offered a clue.

If they’ve played so well yet trail, 2-0, where do they go from here, knowing they’ve squandered playoff leads two games in a row for the first time since a 1993 first-round loss to Toronto? Where do they find the drive and hunger that propelled them last spring, and the secret to beating the calm, positionally sound Giguere?

The Ducks’ biggest victory might be in planting in the Red Wings’ minds seeds of doubt over their ability to beat Giguere. Thomas, voicing the Anaheim party line, insisted the Ducks won’t approach the next game with that as a given:

“We have way too respect for them. They may be the greatest team to ever put a pair of skates on. We can’t just throw our sticks and skates out there in Game 3 and expect to win.”

The Red Wings didn’t go through the motions. They crashed the net more Saturday than in their 2-1 loss in the series opener, and they won 61% of the faceoffs, up from 58% in Game 1. They were let down by their goaltending. Unless that changes, they’re two losses away from the end of their season.

“We have to win the next game,” Yzerman said. “... I’m sure the coaches will make some adjustments and we won’t change things dramatically.”

But will the outcome change? Even Yzerman wouldn’t say. Perhaps because it would have been a promise he and the Red Wings couldn’t deliver.

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Taking a Bite Out of Cujo

Through two playoff games, Mighty Duck goaltender Jean-Sebastian Giguere has faced 32 more shots than his more established counterpart from Detroit, Curtis Joseph, while allowing two fewer goals:

*--* GIGUERE JOSEPH 2-0 Record 0-2 100 Shots faced 68 97 Saves 63 3 Goals allowed 5 970 Save percentage 926

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-- Roy Jurgens