Ducks stun Red Wings to take 3-2 series lead
DETROIT: The Anaheim Ducks had their backs to the wall for most of Game Five of the Western Conference finals on Sunday, but staged a stunning fightback to beat the Detroit Red Wings 2-1 in overtime.
The victory gave Anaheim a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series, and they can clinch a place in the Stanley Cup finals by winning Game Six on home ice today. Game Seven, if necessary, will be back in Detroit on Thursday.
The winner of the series will play Ottawa for the Stanley Cup after the Senators clinched their series against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.
Detroit opened the scoring in the second period through Andreas Lilja and were on the brink of victory before Scott Niedermayer tied the score with less than a minute left in regulation time.
Teemu Selanne then scored in overtime to seal the dramatic win.
"This group is a resilient bunch of athletes that are committed to doing whatever it takes," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle told reporters.
"In the end we found a way to get it done, there's no quit in this group."
It was a crushing defeat for the Wings, who had totally dominated the contest.
After a scoreless opening period Detroit drew first blood when Daniel Cleary spotted Lilja charging down the left wing. The big Swede took a perfect cross-ice feed and blasted the puck past Jean-Sebastien Giguere for his first playoff goal.
Hero to zero
Even with standout defenseman Chris Pronger back in the lineup after serving a one-game suspension for an illegal hit to the head on Detroit's Tomas Holmstrom, the Ducks still struggled to make headway.
But with less than a minute left to play in the third period, the Ducks took off netminder Giguere for an extra attacker and, with Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk in the penalty box for interference, they finally pierced the Wings' defense.
Niedermayer got off a low shot that took a deflection off Red Wings defender Nicklas Lidstrom's stick on its way past goalie Dominik Hasek.
Detroit's Lilja then went from hero to zero as he turned the puck over deep in his own zone and watched in horror as Selanne neatly backhanded the winner over sprawling Red Wings netminder Hasek 11:57 into overtime.
"It was probably my biggest goal (so far), but hopefully the biggest is still to come," said Selanne.
"It was a very important win, but we needed 22 guys to believe we could come back.
"We were down 1-0 for nearly 59 minutes and Scott Niedermayer scored the tying goal. I think that changed the momentum, we started believing even more that we could come back."
Wings coach Mike Babcock had no harsh words for Lilja despite his costly error.
"It was tough for him," he said.
"It's unfortunate. Just mishandles the puck and it ends up in our net.
"But the playoffs are about adversity. Things go your way, sometimes they don't. No one told us this was going to be easy."
Agencies
(China Daily 05/22/2007 page24)
