Wings hit, just aren't hitting back

Love hockey ? me too!
temporarily staying here in Texas , is kind of a bummer for me , I have no T.V. , so I'm missing the playoffs, dallass is playing rough because they are behind two games to
none , so naturally the cheap shots are coming out ! I hope my home team "the wings "puts these guys down in four , a sweep , again , they need a good brooming here this hole is dusty!
from the detnews.com

John Niyo / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- They've had their toughness challenged again, this time by a bunch of trash-talking Texans who wear black hats back home on the ranch and by a Canadian coach wearing a pink suit.

So, in that sense, you could say the Wings are taking on all comers at this point.

But, with apologies to Don Cherry and, yes, this city's nostalgic, old-time hockey roots, too, the Red Wings' response is the same as it ever was. Or at least since they started winning Stanley Cups again in this city.

....

It's a simple shrug of the shoulders.

"Right now, you play hard and you play smart when the game is on," said Wings goalie Chris Osgood, whose team owns a 2-0 series lead as the best-of-seven Western Conference finals shift to Dallas for tonight's Game 3. "And when the whistle blows, you take it and you go to the bench and switch lines and get ready for the next shift. That's our approach."

That's a no-frills, no-fisticuffs approach that not everyone in hockey fully appreciates, apparently. Cherry, the bombastic CBC-TV analyst, said as much Friday night when he lamented the Wings' willingness to turn the other cheek.

"(Coach Mike) Babcock's got 'em programmed," he said. "They will not retaliate, no matter what you do to them."

But if that's a crime, Babcock pleads guilty as charged.

"If you feel punching somebody in the head after the whistle is gonna help you win, that's what you should do," he said, a bit sarcastically, just before he and his team headed for the airport Sunday afternoon. "But that's not the way we go about our business. We're just about winning."

Thus far in the playoffs, they seem to have a pretty good handle on this winning thing. Saturday's victory was the Wings' eighth in a row in the playoffs, and Detroit is outscoring its opposition by a nearly 2-to-1 margin (44 goals to 23) this postseason.

And whether it's the Wings' top line playing keep-away with the puck, Kris Draper & Co. dominating in the faceoff circle, or Tomas Holmstrom invading goaltenders' private space, the end result has been mostly frustration from the opposition.

"You think?" Holmstrom said Sunday.

That frustration boiled over Saturday night at the end of Game 2, when Dallas forward Steve Ott took issue with Draper driving him to the ice on a last-minute draw, skated after Draper and punched him in the head.

The Stars' Mike Ribeiro then put an ugly exclamation point on the Wings' 2-1 win at Joe Louis Arena, reacting to what he felt was a butt-end stick to the face from Osgood in the waning seconds. Ribeiro's response was a two-handed slash to Osgood's chest over the back of the net that drew a match penalty.

The NHL ruled Sunday, however, that it would not suspend any Stars or Red Wings player for late-game antics. Ribeiro, Ott and Osgood have been fined undisclosed amounts by the NHL.

"If you (look at) a replay, he actually tries to do it," Ribeiro said. "It's not like he accidentally hit me. He kind of was bent down, raised up and clipped me in the face."

Osgood shrugged it off Sunday, but his teammates weren't as willing.

"Gutless. Chicken (expletive)," Darren McCarty said, when asked his thoughts on Ribeiro's actions. "That's not part of the game. To swing your stick like a baseball bat -- not only at somebody, but at our goalie -- is definitely not acceptable. That's not what this game is about."

Even Ribeiro's teammates seem to agree on that.

"They've always been tough," Mike Modano said. "They have some guys who play strong and make some hits, but they're not ones to get sucked into any undisciplined situations or react or get into a street fight.

"They play hard between the whistles, and they're not retaliating at all. So the more we try to drag them into that situation, I think the worse it's going to be for us."

Added McCarty: "You're not gonna rattle us. There's too much experience here. We've been through that before. And if they want to take it that way, I think we've proven we can handle that. But we'll let our power play speak for us. That's what we've always done."

Well, not always. As Cherry and others are quick to note, Detroit's hockey tradition is rooted in the rough stuff, from Gordie Howe to the Bruise Brothers. But that began to change in the 1990s, after Scotty Bowman arrived as head coach and the Wings' adopted a more European, puck-possession style.

"I can't tell you how many times he was screaming at me from the bench not to fight this guy or do something," McCarty recalled Sunday. "So it's sort of ingrained in you. It's gotta be the right moment, where you're not going to hurt the team and not going to get an extra penalty.

"And that's the thing: Scotty always said toughness was being able to take that extra punishment, whether it was in front of the net or wherever. Not retaliating or putting yourself above the team, that's toughness, too."

Babcock, not surprisingly, preaches the same gospel. But even as he does, he bristles at the suggestion the Wings are winning with finesse, not force.

"The 39 times we finished checks last night, I don't know how much turning the cheek (that was)," Babcock said. "I don't know if their (defensemen) think we're turning the other cheek.

"I mean, what's toughness? Is toughness punching someone in the head after the whistle? Or is toughness having the puck, or running over someone, or being in the right place screening the goalie? You guys decide that, not me. But I have my own theory, obviously."