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DETROIT — The octopus hit the ice at precisely 3:21 p.m. The chords of Detroit Rock City by KISS followed immediately afterwards. The crowd at the Joe Louis Arena was ready to rock — for exactly 36 seconds.
It took that long for the visiting San Jose Sharks to fashion a 1-0 lead over the Detroit Red Wings on a goal by Jonathan Cheechoo.
It was 2-0 by the 4:17 mark on Joe Thornton's first goal of the playoffs and things were looking grim for the hometown Wings when the public address system tried to rally the troops by playing Don Henley's Get Over It — and the message seemed to sink in.
The Red Wings did get over it.
The Red Wings' Jiri Hudler, left, congratulates teammate Henrik Zetterberg after his first period-goal against the San Jose Sharks. Detroit won 3-2. (AP)
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- Detroit Red Wings
- San Jose Sharks
- Mark Bell
- Jonathan Cheechoo
- Chris Chelios
- Daniel Cleary
- Pavel Datsyuk
- Kris Draper
- Christian Ehrhoff
- Mike Grier
- Bill Guerin
- Dominik Hasek
- Tomas Holmstrom
- Kirk Maltby
- Kyle McLaren
- Milan Michalek
- Evgeni Nabokov
- Henrik Zetterberg
For the second consecutive game, Detroit fell behind by two goals early, but this time around, they found a way of penetrating the Sharks' smothering defence for three unanswered goals to pull out a dramatic 3-2 victory in a Saturday matinee that squared the best-of-seven Western Conference semi-final at a game apiece.
The Red Wings' Pavel Datsyuk scored the game winner with 1:24 to go in regulation, getting the rebound of Mikael Samuelsson's shot in front of a fallen Sharks' goaltender Evgeni Nabokov and backhanding it into the open goal.
Defenceman Chris Chelios started the play on Datsyuk's goal by keeping the puck in the zone. Henrik Zetterberg then dished it off to Samuelsson.
"He was kind of open so I gave it to him," said Zetterberg. "He made a good shot and Pav was there to put the rebound in the empty net. That's the kind of goals you have to do in the playoffs, because it's going to be tight and it's going to be close."
Game 3 will be played Monday at the HP Pavilion — aka the Shark Tank — and suddenly, it is a series again.
Getting down 2-0 after four minutes was not how the Red Wings wanted to start, however.
"You just gotta shake your head about that," said centre Kris Draper. "In a crucial game and a must-win situation, it's not how we wanted to start."
Once again, there were empty seats in the usually sold-out Joe Louis Arena, something that was variously attributed to an afternoon Tigers' game at Comerica Park; a televised Pistons playoff game in Orlando; the NFL draft (the Lions took a wide receiver, again!); the slumping local economy; or the fact that the sun came out for the first time in a week.
It may also have had something to do with the unremarkable series opener, which was followed by what was mostly another low-scoring snooze-athon. Whatever happened to the wide-open "new" NHL? The Sharks and Red Wings both possess plenty of Grade-A scoring talent, but the defensive players have been winning the day thus far in the series.
Or they were until San Jose's Christian Ehrhoff and Bill Guerin mishandled the puck to set up Daniel Cleary for the third-period, shorthanded goal that tied the game and set the stage for Datsyuk's winner.
"We had opportunities throughout the game," said Sharks' coach Ron Wilson. "[Dominik] Hasek made some great saves, but I think about the dumb mistakes we made in the third period that you can't make in a playoff game. A turnover on the power play. Then, just the whole last shift, when they scored the goal, we didn't do one thing right."
It was a different story in the first, when the Red Wings committed 10 turnovers, two of which ended up in their own net. On the first, Cheechoo intercepted an errant clearing pass just inside the Red Wings' blue line and dished it off to Thornton, who cycled the puck this way and that way before sending it back to Kyle McLaren at the point. Cheechoo tipped McLaren's shot past Red Wings' goaltender Hasek.
A mix-up between Hasek and his defencemen led to the second Sharks goal. Hasek hesitated briefly before going behind the net to play the puck and made a half-hearted clearing pass that the Sharks' Milan Michalek intercepted. With Hasek caught out of position, Thornton dumped Michalek's centring feed into the unattended net.
"I thought we really got nervous and didn't execute at all at that point," said Red Wings' coach Mike Babcock. "When you don't execute, they get quicker, you get slower, they get bigger, you get smaller. We were fortunate to get through the first period and get ourselves regrouped. We were much better in the second.
"It's very apparent neither team can get the puck to the net. It's impossible to do. That's just the way it is, so we just have to find a way, whether it's banking it off the back boards or something else. But I thought we showed good leadership and mental toughness and found a way to stick to it and get a good win. Now, it's a best-of-five and we should loosen up and relax and get playing."
Detroit didn't register its first shot on goal until the 12:56 mark of the first period by Samuelsson. A goal by Zetterberg from a bad angle at the 17:30 mark — the puck deflected in off McLaren's stick — closed the gap and the Red Wings were in it again.
"We just knew that if we stayed with it and showed patience, the puck would start to go in," Zetterberg said.
The Sharks didn't get much done in the second period — their first shot came off Bill Guerin's stick about 13 minutes in. Until then, the most dangerous player in the period was Zetterberg, who played as well as he has in weeks, or since returning to the Red Wing's line-up after battling a back injury. He was on Nabokov's doorstep all afternoon, making his life uncomfortable.
Cleary's goal came shorthanded after Kirk Maltby created the turnover. Cleary didn't waste any time jumping on the loose puck and blasting a shot past Nabokov on the glove side.
The Sharks made one line-up change, inserting Mark Bell in Joe Pavelski's spot. The Red Wings stayed with the same line-up, meaning Tomas Holmstrom (eye) and Brett Ledba (ankle) are both still out.
The Sharks' Mike Grier welcomed the change in venue, noting: "We're excited to go home. It's a tough building and they play well here. We got a split, so we're happy with that.
"But I think we all know we can play a little better."
