GAME ONE RECAP (Red Wings 3, Penguins 1)

When the NHL returned from its year-long hiatus in 2005, several game rules were changed to increase scoring opportunities. If a team ices the puck, the faceoff not only comes back to their defensive end, but the players who were on the ice for that team must stay on the ice for the faceoff, while the other team is free to change lines. It's one of the subtler changes to the game, and while it's difficult to gauge how many goals per season it creates, it adds an extra deterrent to icing the puck, so I'm all for it. Last night, though, there's a good chance it cost the Penguins the game.

The first period was full of hitting and tight checking, and after the Red Wings scored the opening goal thanks to a fluky bounce off the endboards, they came in waves at the Penguins in an effort to extend the lead. The Penguins held down the fort until they evened the score right before the end of the second period on a strange goal of their own. Evgeni Malkin backchecked the WIngs into turning over the puck in the defensive zone, then took a slapshot that Chris Osgood stopped, but let skitter out from beneath his pads. He lunged to grab it, only to have Ruslan Fedotenko knock the puck out of his glove and shovel it into the empty net. It was just the sort of goal the Penguins will need to get if they're going to make the series competitive, and they'd got it with less than two minutes to go in the first.

The Penguins owned the better of the play in the second, even though they didn't get a goal to show for it. They significantly outshot the Wings and possessed the puck for the larger part of the period. They worked the dump-and-chase well and rolled all four lines, though the line combinations were perhaps unnecessarily overjumbled for a team that came in riding a five-game playoff winning streak. Toward the end of the second, though, the Wings came to life, and as they started to put on pressure in the Penguins' zone, Hal Gill and Rob Scuderi significantly overextended themselves, and the puck was iced. It was plain to see that they were spent, and Dan Bylsma used him timeout to try to give them a breather. It wasn't enough. Sid Crosby lost the faceoff, a few opportunities to clear the puck were blown, another crazy bounce off the endboards and off Fleury's leg later, and the Wings had their game-winning goal with less than a minute to go in the second, after the Penguins had turned in one of their better periods of the postseason, all things considered.

And then the Angel of Death appeared. When the second period ended a moment later and I turned the channel to avoid NBC's dreadful between-periods studio show, I found that the NFL Network was showing a full rebroadcast of Super Bowl XXX. Or, as I like to call it, Neil O'Donnell's friendly game of catch with Larry Brown.

[reverse-jinxin']There's no way the Penguins can beat that Red Wing machine. They're just too good.[/reverse-jinxin']