How To Succeed In The Playoffs Without Really Trying

If you were to create a recipe for leading a playoff hockey series 3-2 after five games, it's doubtful that you would include these ingredients:

*Fall behind 2-0 in three of the games
*Rarely play with the lead in the first four games
*Score first in just one of the five games
*Be trailing by a goal with under a minute to go in Game 4 when you're already trailing the series, 2-1

"I don't know what's going on with that," the Red Wings' Tomas Homstrom said when I suggested the team was working with a strange battle plan for success, following Detroit's 4-1 win Saturday over San Jose in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals. "That's not how we want to play."

"Well, we've gotten some breaks," captain Nick Lidstrom said. "But we've been sticking to our game plan, even though we've been down in games. We haven't changed our plan, or tried to make too much out of it ... and it's been working for us."

So despite all of the strange ingredients, the Wings are poised to move on. But does the "game plan" that Lidstrom speaks of change at all, now that Detroit plays with the advantage in games for the first time in this series? Not really, he says.

But ...

"I think them being down, they're going to be coming out with their best effort," Lidstrom said of the Sharks. "Especially playing at home ... they're going to be desperate. I think they're going to throw everything at us.

"And the deeper you get into a series, the tougher the wins get," Lidstrom continued. "That's just something we have to be up for come Monday (for Game 6)."

It was pointed out during the radio postgame show that the momentum of the series shifted when Holmstrom batted a puck out of the air and into the Sharks' net, a power play goal in the final seconds of the second period of Game 4, cutting the Red Wings' deficit to 2-1. I'd say that's pretty spot on. The Wings have outscored the Sharks 6-1 since then. But you could go back even further, to when Holmstrom simply stepped onto the ice for pregame warmups -- his first action in the series since suffering an eyelid injury against Calgary.

"He (Holmstrom) means a lot," Henrik Zetterberg said of #96. "Especially on the power play. He's so good in front of the net and making it tough for (SJ goalie Evgeni) Nabokov, and making plays."

The "Action Line" of Zetterberg, Holmstrom, and Pavel Datsyuk combined for three goals and five assists in Game 5. Each scored a goal.

Oh, and as for that strange recipe? At least one Red Wing would like to scratch out one ingredient.

"I'd like to not make any more mistakes in the first period," goalie Dominik Hasek said, on a day where he gave up a fluke goal for the second straight home game, putting his team behind the eight-ball.

"But," he added, "a win is a win. It doesn't matter how you get it."

And the Wings have gotten three of them in this series, leaving the Sharks going back to the cupboard, er, chalkboard.