Red Wings are up next

Sunday, May 04, 2008

With the San Jose Sharks out of the way, the Dallas Stars move on to the Western Conference Finals where they will meet the Detroit Red Wings.

The Red Wings wrapped up their semifinal series against Colorado on Thursday, pounding the banged up Avalanche 8-2 in Denver to complete a sweep.

The Red Wings, who eliminated Nashville 4-2 in the quarterfinals, are making their second straight trip to the Western Conference Finals. They lost to Anaheim in six games last season.

The Red Wings won three of four against the Stars this season, including both games in Detroit.

Stars-Red Wings Regular Season Series

Season Series
Date Location Result
Wednesday January 2 Detroit Detroit 4, Dallas 1
Saturday January 5 Dallas Detroit 3, Dallas 0
Sunday February 17 Dallas Dallas 1, Detroit 0
Thursday March 13 Detroit Detroit 5, Dallas 3

Special Teams

Dallas

Detroit
Power Play 1-11 (9.1%) Power Play 1-15 (6.7%)
Penalty Kill 14-15 (93.3%) Penalty Kill 10-11 90.9%)

Franzen's remarkable run

The Red Wings may have some big name players like Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, but it was Johan Franzen who has been lighting it up through the first two rounds of the playoffs, especially in the Colorado series.

Franzen has set or tied five franchise records so far in the the playoffs. He set franchise marks for most goals in one postseason (11) and one playoff series (nine). He equaled club records for most hat tricks (two) and game-winning goals (four) in a postseason and most hat tricks in
one series (two).

His nine goals in the Colorado series broke the franchise record of eight set by Gordie Howe back in 1949. He also broke a Howe record during the regular season, notching six game-winning goals in March, breaking Howe's franchise mark of five game-winners in one month.

"He's been great. He's a big, big man with lots of skill. We're lucky to have him," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. "We feel good about that. I'm not taking anything away from what we did, but their team was depleted by the end here. He's been big now for a long time. He broke Gordie's record in March, and then he broke his record here. So good for him. If you're going to break records, you might as well break Gordie Howe's."

Red Wings Injury Update

  • Defenseman Chris Chelios missed Game 4 of the Colorado series with a lower body injury. It is not thought to be serious.
     

  • Forward Tomas Kopecky is out for the rest of the season with a knee injury

Red Wings lineup

Here's the lineup the Red Wings rolled out in Thursday's game against the Colorado Avalanche.

Red Wings Forward Lines/Defensive Combinations
Left Wing Center Right Wing
Holmstrom Datsyuk Zetterberg
Franzen Filppula Samuelsson
Drake Draper Cleary
Hudler Helm McCarty
Defense
Lidstrom   Rafalski
Stuart   Kronvall
Lilja   Lebda

Quotable

"I didn't follow the game back then."

Red wings forward Johan Franzen on breaking Gordie Howe's record of eight goals in a series, which was set in 1949

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