Detroit, MI. The number seven seed in the Western Conference has done the unthinkable. For most of the season, Chicago came flying out of the gates, and yet the Red Wings have a two games to one lead on the supposedly dominant Hawks. Jonanthan held off the scoreboard – no one saw this coming. Everybody thought the Hawks would march through the Red Wings, except for me. What an incredible series we have! Number one must regroup now that they are down two games to one. You might as well give credit to Mike Babcock, because it looked like Detroit wasn’t even going to make the playoffs. It looked like one of the NHL’s most talked-about franchises wasn’t even going to make the playoffs. Now number one has to fight back. This is a must win coming up for the Hawks in game four. Jonathan has been missing from the Chicago offense, perhaps maybe he is holding his stick too tight? I have no idea, but if the Blackhawks are going to rely on Jonathan, then they are going to have to rely on another aspect of the game from him, because he is just not getting it done offensively. What a great performance by Jimmy Howard in last night’s game for the Wings! He stopped one of Chicago’s biggest threats point bleak. The Blackhawks could only manage one goal, which came off the stick of Patrick Kane. Prior to that, I thought there should have been a major penalty on the Hawks, because when you purposely run somebody into the glass and they stay down for a little while, you deserve a penalty. I thought the Hawks got away with one, and I would have made Jonathan go serve the penalty. I also would have given the Blackhawks five minutes for boarding and possibly a game ejection! There is no place for their inexcusable hockey. You don’t win by hurting the Red Wings, you win by putting the pucks in the net. Maybe Quenneville has trained them to play some very ugly hockey? He can yell at me all he wants, but the point is that you definitely don’t do what the Blackhawks did to the Red Wings. There should have been a call on that. Maybe the referee needs to go the eye doctor? There is no place for that in hockey! They should do what they do in the NAHL, and that is if they see blood it should be an automatic penalty, and then they have a ejection!

Detroit, MI. With the series tied at one, I’m very proud of the Red Wings for the way that they played in Chicago on Saturday afternoon. Winning a championship is hard, but that’s the nature of the business in the NHL. Now, the Red Wings are back in front of their own fans. The key now is to make Chicago uncomfortable going into the “JLA”. The Red Wings don’t have familiar captains like Steve and Nicholas, they have a captain whose name is Henrik Zetterberg. Henrik can also shoot the puck with the best of them. The keys for the Red Wings are to find their sharpshooters, to make sure they get a body on Hossa and Jonathan and take away their shooting lanes, and help Jimmy Howard out! The Red Wings must come out with energy. You are playing in your home barn in front of fans that know how to make noise, and that can play a key role in derailing Chicago’s hope for another Cup. You can expect a very vocal crowd, and you can expect Chicago to try and take the crowd out of it during the first five minutes. You’ve got to weather the Red Wings storm!

After dispatching the Anaheim Ducks, the Red wings are faced with their arch rival, the Chicago Blackhawks. This is also the team that has a former Redwings player, Marian Hossa. There will be two interesting match-ups in this series. It will be number 40 Henrik Zetterberg against number 19 Jonathan Toews, and it will also be Corey against Jimmy. Who do I think will win this series? It will all come down to the battles I just talked about. I myself see it going all seven games. I also see no love lost between the Red Wings and the Hawks. It’s going to be a back and forth series, with the Red Wings and the Hawks to duke it out, and by that I don’t mean fighting, I mean some good hockey! There is no reason not to think that Detroit and Chicago won’t need a 7th game to decide their series. You have a match up of two of the original six teams. In the end, there might be a surprise winner. The Redwings will win four games to three.

Elsewhere in the Western Conference, you have the battle of California: LA vs SJ. You have the defending Stanley Cup Champions going into northern CA, where you have to watch your fingers and toes, because the Sharks have been hungry, and wouldn’t they love to bring the Cup to the shark tank? First they have to de-crown the Kings, and then they will play the winner of the Detroit and Chicago series in the west final.