Five Questions for the WCF
I did this for the first round and decided to do it once more for the third round.
5. Will Marty Turco alter the storyline of his career against the Red Wings? For the record I don’t put much stock into the fact Turco has struggled against the Wings. They play against each other so infrequently that I think it’s more of an aberration than anything. But if he struggles in the first two games after looking brilliant over the past three rounds [including the Vancouver series last year] then I think that storyline will become intractable.
4. Will the Wings be able to contain Brendan Morrow? As I pointed out last night, Morrow and Jere Lehtinen accounted for 40% of Dallas’ goals in their series against the Sharks. Mike Babcock appears to be making an adjustment even before the series starts by playing Brad Stuart alongside Nick Lidstrom. The pairing of Nick Lidstrom and Danny Markov did a solid job on Jarome Iginla in the first round last year against Calgary, so a matchup of Lids and Stuart against the Morrow-Mike Ribeiro-Lehtinen line might give the Wings their best shot at keeping Morrow locked down.
3. Will Detroit be able to contain the Stars’ Power Play? Dallas’ power play has been sensational. The best way to contain it obviously is to not take penalties. Barring that, will Detroit be able to keep Dallas off the scoreboard while playing short handed? San Jose had the top PK unit in the regular season but still allowed the Stars to score 22.7% of the time they had the man advantage.
2. Will Detroit be able to put up 3 goals per game against Dallas? When it comes to winning a playoff series the team that averages 3 goals per game tends to win the series. Detroit currently leads the NHL in playoff scoring average with 3.80 goals per game. The Stars have not faced as strong - or deep - of an offensive team as the Red Wings during the playoffs. San Jose ranked 19th during the regular season in goals for average, while the Ducks ranked a distant 28th. The Stars were able to shut them both down but will they be able to limit Detroit to less than three goals per game?
1. Will Dallas once again go on the road and claim the first two games in the series? Dallas has quickly seized control of their two series thus far by winning the opening two games on the road. I don’t know what the statistics are for a team rebounding from dropping their first two games at home in a playoff series but my guess is they end up getting booted much more often than not.
I’ll update these questions througout the series.
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