Red Wings Win, Keep Hope Alive

DETROIT —  Their scorers scored, their support players made key contributions and their defense withstood furious pressure, which was the script the Detroit Red Wings were supposed to follow this spring, not the frustrating, tortured path they have taken three times to the brink of elimination.

Center Sergei Fedorov scored his first goal in 11 games and added an assist, and defenseman Paul Coffey, who sat out the previous two games because of back spasms, had two assists as the Red Wings overwhelmed the Colorado Avalanche, 5-2, Monday at Joe Louis Arena and cut Colorado’s lead in the Western Conference finals to 3-2. The Red Wings must win again Wednesday at Denver’s McNichols Arena to force a seventh game, which would be played Friday at Detroit. But they’re looking at the bright side.

“The only thing worse than being in this situation is not being in this situation at all,” Detroit captain Steve Yzerman said. “I find we’re much more confident, much more comfortable than in the past that we can come out and win when we need to.”

Since the NHL introduced a best-of-seven format in 1939, only 13 clubs have rebounded from a 3-1 deficit to win a playoff series. However, it has been done 11 times in the last nine seasons, including the Red Wings against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second round of the 1987 playoffs and against Minnesota in the first round in 1992.

The Red Wings also overcame a 3-2 lead built by the St. Louis Blues in the previous round this spring, an experience they drew on Monday.

“I liked the atmosphere before the game,” veteran defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov said. “Every guy was desperate and wanted to show up and show what he can do on the ice. That’s how we were successful all year long.”

They were successful Monday because their big guns produced, their defense dished out some big hits--Vladimir Konstantinov’s hip check on Avalanche winger Claude Lemieux in the second period was a classic--and goaltender Chris Osgood looked confident in stopping 26 shots.

“It’s kind of weird. Everybody puts pressure on us to win it all, then we’re down, 3-1, and everybody’s writing us off,” Osgood said. “I think our team thrives on pressure situations and challenges.

“We believe we can win two more. It’s going to be tougher than St. Louis. We’re going to have to play our best game of the season in Colorado.”

First-period goals by Vyacheslav Kozlov, on the rebound of a shot by Doug Brown at 11:35, and Igor Larionov, who captured the rebound of a shot that had gone wide, allowed the Red Wings to build on the enthusiasm generated by the sellout crowd of 19,983. Colorado pulled within one on a goal credited to Mike Ricci at 2:10 of the second period, although it was Osgood who put the puck into the net while trying to tuck it into his pad, but the Red Wings came back 2:08 later when Fedorov redirected a shot by Coffey from the point.

The Avalanche chipped away again, on a tip-in by Ricci during a power play at the eight-minute mark, but the Red Wings had a response for that too. Doug Brown, who had been benched by Detroit Coach Scotty Bowman for one game of this series, scored his third playoff goal when he deflected a shot by Coffey over the shoulder of goalie Patrick Roy at 12:15.

Greg Johnson’s conversion of a Martin Lapointe rebound with 31.6 seconds left in the period provided the final, insurmountable flourish.

“They played very well. They were really good in front of the net,” Colorado Coach Marc Crawford said of the Red Wings. “They got their sticks on a couple of pucks in front of the net and we weren’t very good with our sticks in eliminating chances of high quality in the goal area. We were missing something defensively.”

Whatever they were missing, the Avalanche players were confident they would rediscover it by Wednesday.

“I like our chances at home,” defenseman Uwe Krupp said. “If we play the way we’ve been playing in the games we won against Detroit, I think home ice will be an advantage.”

Pleased though they were Monday, the Red Wings weren’t thinking ahead to a seventh game. “We played pretty well and I think we can even play better, but we still have a long road ahead of us,” Coffey said. “We can’t be patting ourselves on the back too much. We really haven’t done anything except give ourselves another chance.”