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DETROIT — Tomas Holmstrom's reputation precedes him. Sometimes, it even exceeds him.
In Saturday's opening game of the Stanley Cup final, Holmstrom — the Detroit Red Wings' left winger, who makes a living out of distracting goaltenders — was in the midst of a controversy again. A ruling that Holmstrom interfered with Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury caused a first-period goal by Nicklas Lidstrom to be disallowed.
But the Red Wings — relying heavily on their experience — shrugged off that early setback and also successfully killed off four first-period penalties, the two keys in recording a 4-0 win over the visiting Penguins at the Joe Louis Arena. The victory gave the Red Wings a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, with Game 2 set to be played Monday here in Detroit.
Two unassisted goals by Mikael Samuelsson made the difference offensively for a Detroit team that relied on its four-line attack. Daniel Cleary scored a shorthanded goal with 2:42 remaining in the third period and then Henrik Zetterberg completed the scoring with 12.2 seconds left on the power play.
Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and Sergei Gonchar defend the goal against Tomas Holmstrom during Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
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- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Daniel Cleary
- Sidney Crosby
- Dallas Drake
- Kris Draper
- Pascal Dupuis
- Marc-Andre Fleury
- Hal Gill
- Dominik Hasek
- Marian Hossa
- Nicklas Lidstrom
- Chris Osgood
- Gary Roberts
- Mikael Samuelsson
- Henrik Zetterberg
Sidney Crosby looked good early in his finals debut, playing a solid first period and setting up his line-mates, Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis, for numerous scoring chances, only to be foiled by Red Wings' goaltender Chris Osgood, who turned in another reliable performance in the Detroit net.
Osgood picked up his second shutout of the playoffs and his first since Apr. 30, or back in the Nashville Predators' series. Now 8-1 at home in these playoffs, Detroit got an important leg-up in the series, as teams winning the first game of a Stanley Cup final have gone on to win the championship in 53 of 68 seasons since the best-of-seven format was introduced in 1939. The last team to come back after losing the first game at home was Tampa Bay in 2004 against the Calgary Flames.
The Red Wings did what they have done so successfully throughout these playoffs — weathering an early storm, caused by their early penalty trouble, and then getting stronger as the game advanced. Detroit out-shot the Penguins 16-4 in the second period alone and took control from then on.
Nine of the players in Detroit's starting line-up, along with back-up goaltender Dominik Hasek, have all won Stanley Cups before — and that appeared to make a difference for a team that didn't get off to the start that it wanted.
"You try to put that behind you," said Lidstrom, about the disallowed goal. "I thought we were still able to go at them, and get shots and go there for rebounds. I don't think it discouraged us. We were still going hard to the net."
Offensively, the Red Wings turned to their nominal third line of Samuelsson, Kris Draper and Dallas Drake. Samuelsson scored the first goal that counted officially, an unassisted wrap-around at the 13:01 mark of the middle period, all the offence Detroit would end up needing on the night.
"Sami's a streaky kind of guy," said coach Mike Babcock. "When he scores, he feels good about himself. I thought he played big and strong."
On the play, Samuelsson beat defenceman Rob Scuderi to the outside and circled the net, tucking in the puck between Fleury's pad and the post, as the Penguins' young goaltender was a little late getting across the goal crease.
"I love to score goals, obviously," Samuelsson said. "They turned the puck over at the red line and I saw they'd been out there for 30 or 40 seconds, so I just took a shot at it. I couldn't really cut in front of the net, so I had to go in behind. I guess the goalie, Fleury, committed to me a little bit, so I took a chance to throw it at the ent and it went in."
Simple as that.
Early in the third, Samuelsson again took advantage of a breakdown in the Penguins' defensive zone coverage, this time when Fleury, Malkin and Scuderi mishandled the puck in front of their own net. Malkin eventually turned it over to Samuelsson in the slot and he banged in his second of the night and fourth of the playoffs, essentially putting the game out of reach.
"It was a good individual effort on the first one — he was real patient with the puck, faking the goalie down and doing the wrap-around," said Lidstrom. "On the second one, the puck comes out to him, but the key is, he's going to the net. When he's doing that, he's a big body, and he's hard to stop."
The Red Wings showed a great deal of composure to shrug off the early penalty calls and the controversy over the disallowed goal.
Holmstrom appeared to skirt the front of the goal crease as Lidstrom's wrist shot went in, but he received a goalie interference penalty on the play, presumably because his stick may have tapped Fleury on the pad. Holmstrom didn't look as if his feet were in the crease, nor did he appear to impede Fleury in any meaningful way.
Babcock was livid at the call; in the last series against the Dallas Stars, under similar circumstances, he complained that a disallowed goal scored by his team was strictly a reputation call against Holmstrom, who has made a living out of annoying, distracting and screening NHL goaltenders.
However, he wouldn't be drawn into a discussion of it post-game, presumably because his team eventually won going away.
Asked if the referees were coming down too hard on Holmstrom, Babcock said: "You watched the game. Was he in the crease? … Did he touch his pads in any way or interfere with him in any way? … They [the referees] gotta decide. I just coach the game. I don't get to referee it."
Does Holmstrom believe he's a marked man?
"Yeah, I think so," he said.
The Red Wings needed Osgood to be at his best in the opening period; his save on Hossa after a nice three-way passing play with Crosby and Dupuis late in the first could have been a turning point in the game.
"I thought we were nervous early," said Babcock. "I didn't think we executed early. I thought once we got the tempo up and got skating that things went our way better."
The Penguins held 42-year-old Gary Roberts out of their line-up, not wanting to change a winning combination, according to coach Michel Therrien. Chances are, Roberts will get back in Monday night; the younger Penguins looked as if they needed an injection of energy in the second half of the game, when they were both out-skated and outworked by the ageless Red Wings.
Therrien also talked about his team's nerves, describing the game as "definitely our worst of the playoffs. We didn't compete like we were supposed to compete. It was a good lesson."
