As the Red Wings get ready to once again avoid elimination tonight against San Jose, the coaches are thinking about the matchups they’ll be looking for in the neverending chess match that takes place in a series. So far, the home teams (as expected) have been able to come out on top in these battles, with the top lines for each home team grossly outscoring the other.
While Detroit lost Game 3, Mike Babcock was still able to take advantage of last change and get his top lines productive, and with tonight’s game in San Jose he’s going to have to find some way to do the same with Sharks coach Todd McLellan having the advantage.
If you ask Todd Bertuzzi, the matchups have little to nothing to do with who wins or loses. From Chris McCosky of the Detroit News:
“I don’t think the matchups have been a factor one bit,” he said. “Whichever group plays the best, that’s a good matchup on that night. That hasn’t had anything to do with this series.”
“Bert has a real good point,” Sharks coach Todd McLellan said Saturday morning. “Sometimes as coaches we get consumed in it and we start playing games with ourselves more than anything. It leads to probably more negatives than positives.”
So while the players acknowledge that to them it’s just a matter of outplaying the others across the faceoff circle, there’s certainly credence to when you have two teams as talented as the Sharks and Red Wings facing each other the matchups are all the more important. It’s up to the players then to negate those advantages the home team is looking for.