// Going into the series, I thought that Anaheim was better than Pittsburgh. Not by a huge margin, because I thought Pittsburgh would be tough, but thought the Ducks were better. After the first two games, even though Detroit won both by a couple goals, I changed my mind on that.
// Anaheim was the more physical team, but throughout this series, I was really impressed with the defense of Pittsburgh. They played the passing lanes incredibly well, played the puck great along the boards and won a lot of the little stick-battles for the puck, and blocked a ton of shots. I think they forced Detroit into more offsides in this one series than they had in the previous three combined. They pressured on the other end very hard, but did it without being reckless the way that Chicago was.
// Just to sort of demonstrate the point on their defense - I think that Fleury started looking shaky a couple minutes before Detroit scored their first goal, misplaying a couple pucks and giving up big rebounds. And Ericsson’s goal was a bad, bad goal to give up. Then he got beat on Kronwall’s shot that hit the crossbar. But after the goal, how many saves did he actually have to make in the final six minutes, prior to the final five seconds? Virtually none. And that was with Detroit pressuring a lot. The shots just weren't getting through to him.
// Don't get me wrong, I think for all their talent that Malkin played like a punk at times and Cindy Crosby is a little girl, but the team as a whole deserves credit for what they accomplished.
// And not saying that Pittsburgh was necessarily more deserving than Detroit. The Wings had opportunities that they didn't capitalize on in Game 7 and the previous game. And maybe having Datsyuk could have tipped game three or four in their favor. Still, I just think it was a series where they were very evenly matched, but only one team can win it...
// Still don’t like Pittsburgh. No choice.
// MAINSTREAM
