Yes, yes, yes!

Well, that was NOT easy. It's great to see the Red Wings back in the Stanley Cup Finals. I was telling my oldest child while watching the game that even as you get to my age, watching your team advance through the NHL playoffs is extremely exciting theater.
I've neglected the Pistons on this blog. I am not much of an NBA fan, and I admit it, but it is kind of neat to have both winter teams (that's what they used to be) moving along nicely. I'll watch the Pistons in the conference finals, but I won't live and die with every basket. With the Wings, and this goes back to childhood, I seem to grit my teeth on every shift. It's great fun, even for a geezer like me. There's no comparison, even with a stiff like Bettmann running the NHL, hockey beats basketball, hands down, every time.
Now, can you imagine an NBA player taking a puck (or fist or something) to the face, getting stitches and then coming back to play, the way Kris Draper did last night? Neither can I.
I mean, Draper scored a goal off his face last night -- OK, off his chin -- but where else does this happen? He's stitched up, numbed up and gets back into the game almost immediately. Next to rodeo cowboys, there's no athlete as tough or gritty as a hockey player. Even NFL players, as tough as they are, don't go through the grind that is the NHL.
And, then, Dallas Drake gets two points -- a goal and an assist -- in the first period and finishes as the game's First Star. Now, how many times in the NBA does the third-string guard make a major impact in a playoff game? Like once every 2,000 years, right?
That's why hockey is so great, the greatest game. A hockey team depends on virtually every player to do something on every shift. It might be a simple dump-in, or it might be a backcheck that denies an offensive rush by an opponent.
One miscue, and it could mean the game.
Take, for example, Mike Ribeiro on the Draper goal. He's got Draper covered, then turns away from him as the play gets to the crease. If Ribeiro stays on his check, I bet Draper doesn't score. Instead, Ribeiro turns right instead of left, and the Wings move on.
I think the Wings can beat Pittsburgh, but so much depends on good bounces and good goaltending. Babcock and Tippett both said as much last night, at postgame press conferences.
The league is so close, there's not much on some nights that separate the best team from the worst team. Certainly, the Wings have shown for most of the year they are a little better than everyone else. But they did not play the Pens in the regular season, and who knows which players will be clicking come Saturday, in Game 1?
I suspect the games will be very, very close, and a power-play goal here, a penalty-kill there could very well decide a game, even the series.
Getting the lead will be huge for the Wings; they are much, much better, like most NHL teams, at playing with a lead.
But Pittsburgh has the ability to strike quickly, with Crosby and Malkin and a very good supporting cast.
I like the Wings in 7. But I have my fingers crossed.