Airborn

E.J. Hradek did a podcast for ESPN, and he predicts Smyth signing in Detroit. He's say's Smyth is looking for a good situation and is more interested in winning than breaking the bank. Apparently, he already turned down one of those ridiculous 30-year Islander contracts. This seems almost too good to be true. I'd always assumed we'd never be able to afford Smyth. He'd be the perfect fit as the 2nd line center.

That could explain why he had such a hard time getting a contract this past offseason. The guy is injury prone, but teams usually jump for steady-as-a-rock guys like Markov. That said, I'd think a dressing room like the Wings have would be really good for keeping him under control. I'd like to see him return.

Hey if the Ducks can win 2 in a row after getting outplayed , we can centainly win two in a row to finish them ===the Wings just have to keep playing hard and we will be rewarded--breaks seem to even out in a long series. Our guyes will not give up, rember it is best of 7!

Nice job Wings getting back into it. Bad penalty call on Niedermayer, but where the hell were the officials when Dats was taken down? Also, great game by Cleary. I'm sticking with my prediction during the 1st intermission: Wings 5-4.

I'm calling it now 5-4 Wings. We played a good period - minus the bad giveaway from Bert. Those goals by the Ducks were flukey.

Yeah, they should all just buy a 2nd home out west.

Agreed - Pronger will get the benefit of the doubt, which he doesn't deserve.

Wow! What a game for the Wings. - Major props to Babcock for switching things up to get the team going - Stars of the game were Bert, Homer, Z, Dats, and Flip - and Hasek of course. - On the Homer hit, I agree with the sentiment that Pronger did the damage with the forearm. Although Nidermayer taking 100 strides befoe the hit didn't help.

Here's what sucks about the BS 3rd Anaheim goal. The following players had great games, but nothing is being said about it: Lids Z Lang Maltby Yes Robert Lang, the whipping boy of LGW put together a strong effort. He especially excelled on the PP with some precision passing. You all saw his great assist to Dats, but he also made a couple great passes on the last PP that didn't get put in, but could have. Lidstrom and Zetterberg played exceptional tonight. Zetterberg was by far our best forward in the defensive zone, he won a lot of individual battles there. Lids, played like....well Lidstrom. He was our overall best player. Finally, I thought Malby's goal turned the momentum of the game in our favor. Even though Anaheim got another goal shortly after that, we seemed to play a lot better. On the other side, I thought Draper, Cleary, and Lilja had poor games.

I actually thought we played much better. The Ducks clearly dominated the 1st, but we were better the 2nd and 3rd, and probably would have won, save the horrible 3rd goal, which should not have counted. The Ducks seemed to carry the OT, but overall I liked out game tonight.

The video review did it's job; they determined the puck went in, which it did. The problem was with Schcik. He never blew the whistle despite they fact that he either lost sight of the puck or could clearly see the puck in Dom's pads.

Agreed. Blaming Hasek is silly. He won us game 1, kepts us in the game tonight in the 1st period. The 3rd goal was absolute bulls***, and the final goal came from a lost faceoff (Draper), and a guy falling and losing his man (Cleary). There's about 20 guys on the team I'd look at before deciding to blame Hasek.

Because this is a discussion board about the game! If you want to hear crap like that, watch the post game interview. This site is where fans come to talk about the game, not to throw out politically correct statements.

The whistle should have been blown - period! If Shick had lost sight of the puck, he should have blown the whistle. If Shick could still see the puck, he should have blown the whistle, because it was clearly controlled by Hasek. The play was bulls*** squared, which is pretty much par for the course when it comes to NHL officiating.

The crazy thing is the series could have been a sweep. San Jose was the better team in the 1st 4 games, had leads in every one of them, but the Wings were so damn resilient that they actually walked away with 2 wins. After game 4, the series shifted, and the Wings never let SJ off the matt. Great job by the Wings. They weren't the most talented team in this series, but they wanted it more. Also, it helped that we Hasek this time.

That's awesome! Hopefully they all pick the Duck's in the next round.

Lilja's been fantastic, but I will say he didn't look as good tonight without Schneider. It looks like it's going to be him and Markov pairing up; hopefully they can form the same type of chemistry Schneid's and Lilja had.

I haven't seen a Chelios comment yet, so I'll add one. He was fantastic tonight. He ended up with around 26 minutes of ice time, made a ton of plays, including the one that sprung Sammy for his 2nd goal. Unbelievable what he's doing at his age. BTW, I always laugh when management and coaching predicts Chelios' ice time at 10 to 12 minutes in the beginning of the year. The guys too good, even at his age. You can't keep him off the ice!

I sure hope so. We need for the Ducks to start talking s*** too. Maybe someone can get Burke liquored up and have him go on another rant like in '02.

Nice one.

I know it's probably already been said, but what a game by Lidstrom and Hasek. Also, Sammy wasn't too bad either. By far, our best game of the series.

For anyone who likes Bill Simmons (only the best sportswriter on the planet), he had a great article about the fight. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/blog/index?name=simmons

Losing Schneider hurts, but I'm more conserned what it might do to Lilja's game. He's been our 2nd best defenseman in my opinion, and of couse, his partner was Schneid's. He adjusted well in game 5, so that's a good sign.

Meech will go if Lebda can't. The Sharks are as the best forechecking team in the league. Experience guys like Lids, Chelios, and Schneider have had fits with their constant pressure. The last thing we need is a forward back there. I'm personally even nervous about Lebda. He looked timid and jumpy in the Calgary series. Add in a bum ankle, and I'm not too excited. Edit: Spelling

I think the feeling is mutual with management. They don't feel he's mentally tough enough to play here. http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/features....html?post=7285