[ice4277]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Keys To Game 6: Detroit v. Edmonton

I think they are pretty simple:

1) Manny has to outplay Roloson. He hasn't done this so far to date. Manny has been "Ok." Not horrible, but not great. I don't think we need him to "steal" one for us, but he has to play better than Roloson. No soft goals. With the ways things have been going for the Wings, they aren't likely to overcome too much of a deficit.

2) The Wings have to take care of business around their own net. The Oilers have dominated in, say, a 10-15 foot radius area around the Wings' net. Be it behind or in front, the Wings have not been able to handle the Oilers' forwards there. They are getting in the way of shots, making deflections, causing traffic, stuffing in rebounds. This has to stop. Maybe inserting Cross in the line-up will help, maybe not.

3) The Wings have to take care of business around the Oilers' net and do so early. They can't allow to happen on Saturday to happen tonight. They can't buzz around the net, get a bunch of decent chances, and not score. Outside of a few minutes in Game 1 and the last 8 minutes or so of Game 4, the Wings have never had the lead in this series. They have to get a lead and hope to take the crowd out of the game. Easier said then done, but there you have it.

4) Someone has to step up. Other than Schneider and Zetterberg, and to some extent Lang, the Wings have been pretty dreadful offensively. Datsyuk has gone 26 games without scoring a playoff goal. Williams' only goal was that flukey behind the net thing. Samuelsson has been pretty miserable. Shanahan had the nice goal on Saturday, but other than that he's been no better than Samuelsson. Lidstrom has been very average. It's been quite apparent given the play of Pronger. The team had eight 20 goal scorers. They can and must do better.

I think you've mostly hit the nail on the head. The one thing that has stuck out in my mind, aside from the obvious lack of offensive production from most of the key players, has been the sloppiness in their own end and to some extent in the neutral zone as well. Way too many passes getting intercepted, too many sloppy attempts to clear.