Let us not pull any punches. The Detroit Red Wings were a significantly better hockey team than the Nashville Predators. And, frankly, while the Pope is in the United States he should fly to Nashville and give Barry Trotz sainthood.
The Nashville Predators are a lousy hockey team. And they’re lousy for a reason. Gone in an off-season housecleaning that made the books look good and the product look dreadful, were No. 1 goalie Tomas Vokoun, No. 1 defenceman Kimmo Timonen, leading scorer Paul Kariya and gifted rent-a-player Peter Forsberg. Two of the team’s most reliable forwards, Scott Hartnell and Scottie Upshall had moved on and No. 2 scorer Steve Sullivan was hurt. And he’s been gone all season.
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As we told our National Post readers, when they went to training camp in September, Trotz’s best player was 33-year-old Jason Arnott, a guy who hadn‘t been a top line centre since his days in New Jersey a decade ago. J.P. Dumont, a talented underachiever wasn’t bad and Alexander Radulov, a gifted 21-year-old Russian who has been a victim of unrealized potential, was about due. Dan Ellis, Martin Erat, David Legwand, Vernon Fiddler, Dan Hamhuis and Jordin Tootoo were all good players, but they were no-names who could have been up-and-coming country singers for all anybody knew.
“Yeah, like who is Dan Ellis?” asked Vancouver Canucks forward Jason Jaffray on 92-CITI-FM one morning. “I’d never heard of him before and I looked in the paper and he had some of the best goalie stats in the league. I had no idea who he was.”
Dan Ellis is a 27-year-old from Saskatoon who played at Nebraska-Omaha and was with AHL Iowa last year, but yeah, who knew?
The anonymous Preds started the season as if they were going to be so bad, they’d be sold to an owner who wanted to re-locate them to Minsk. Or Winnipeg.
And yet, the Preds made the playoffs and went 3-3-2 against the President’s Trophy-winning Red Wings this season. So it was no surprise that after losing the first two games of this opening round series, Nashville caught the Wings at 2-2.
For that alone, Trotz should be coach of the year.
Reality began to set in on Saturday night, however. In Game 5, Detroit dominated Nashville and Ellis, almost by himself, got his mates to overtime before the Wings scored the winner. Detroit outshot Nashville 54-21 and owned the game. And still, they were fortunate to win.
Then, on Sunday, Detroit did it again. They absolutely dominated Nashville and they did it with what’s becoming known as "big European hockey." They’re fast and skilled and better suited for the rough going of the playoffs than many experts imagined. And even though Nashville did everything they could to bang the Wings, Detroit was simply too big — and had too many tough players of their own (McCarty, Draper, Cleary). No matter what Nashville tried to do, it wasn’t going to work.
Fact is, the only reason the Preds lasted six games was because Dominik Hasek was so horrible, he personally kept an outclassed Nashville club in the series.
Finally, Wings coach Mike Babcock had seen enough. Chris Osgood took over midway through Game 4 and Detroit was suddenly a winner.
Sunday, Nashville’s dream died. The first period was pretty physical and one could argue that Nashville got the best of the hard-ass play, but by the second period, the Preds had nothing left. Detroit outshot the Preds 21-4 in the second period and it was obvious, when Nicklas Lidstrom scored on a lucky bounce, that this one was Detroit’s to lose.
Fortunately, for the Wings, there was no Dominator to be found. No sieve to destroy the good karma. With Osgood in net, Detroit was clearly the better team. They outshot Nashville 43-20 and Osgood really didn’t have to make too many difficult saves.
It could be said that Dan Ellis was a Conn Smythe candidate based on just six games. In the final two games of the series, he stopped 90 of 94 shots (the final goal on Sunday was scored into an empty net). It was a brilliant performance that kept a bad team in the series.
But ultimately, Detroit was simply better. Period. The President’s Trophy winners deserved to move on and move on they did. With the demise of Dominik Hasek came the rise of the Red Wings.
With goaltending, the Detroit Red Wings are Stanley Cup worthy. Dispatching Nashville, a team that believed it could pull off the upset of the decade, was a great first step. Their next opponents had better be wary.