Red Wings Roll in Game One of WC Finals

It was a nasty combination of European Puck Possession Hockey and 'The Wizard of Oz', as the Detroit Red Wings defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 5-2 in Game One of the Western Conference Finals. A capacity crowd of 20,066 came to witness the spectacle and what a game it was!

Just SEVEN Victories now separate the Detroit Red Wings from their twelfth Stanley Cup in Team history and fifth in 12 years.....and second in as many years. Should the Wings repeat this year, it would be their fourth repeat in the storied past of Red Wing lore.

Wings' Right Winger, Dan Cleary scored two goals, including the game winner, as the Winged Wheelers took a decisive 1-0 lead going into Tuesday night's matchup. The final tally came late in the third period, when Blackhawk netminder, Nikolai Khabibulin was pulled for the extra attacker and Henrik Zetterberg wristed one into the empty net from the nearside boards.

Goalie Chris Osgood stopped 30 shots and Khabibulin stopped 38 in what is likely to be a series of inches, bounces and stolen opportunities. And make no mistake, the Wings and Blackhawks are bitter rivals, because both are Original Six teams. You can expect lots of hard hitting action as this series progresses.

One good thing for the Detroit Red Wings is their post-season production. Last year's diggers were Johan Franzen and Henrik Zetterberg, who peppered the net with puck after puck, but this year, the spotlight is being shared with a host of talent. Among them, Marian Hossa, who came to Detroit in search of Lord Stanley's Cup. As you may recall, Hossa turned down a more lucrative offer from his former team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, to come to Detroit...so you know he's hungry. But Jiri Hudler, Pavel Datsyuk and the balance of the Detroit Red Wings have tasted the fruits of Victory and they are determined to repeat and take the Cup once again in 2009.

Game Two of the WC Finals is Tuesday night, 7:30pm puck-to-ice at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

GO RED WINGS!