While the Pittsburgh Penguins have been a little unlucky so far in the Stanley Cup finals, you really make your own breaks, and if you're the Detroit Red Wings, you've got Chris Osgood playing as well as he's ever played, according to teammate Nicklas Lidstrom.
At the other end of the ice, it really looked like Marc-Andre Fleury was going to able to match Osgood every step of the way, especially in the second period, when he stopped Henrik Zetterberg point blank, and again in the dying seconds in the period when he did a terrific job.
The third period was a different story though, when Justin Abdelkader who now has two goals in his NHL career, both in the playoffs, scored on a one-on-two rush.
Abdelkader shouldn't be confused with Darren Helm, who has scored five goals in the post-season, despite not scoring a goal in the regular season.
There seems to be an endless supply of Red Wings that can come up from the minors and become stars in the playoffs.
You make your own breaks and in the case of Fleury, he was having a tremendous textbook game until the Abdelkader goal - which was like a knuckleball - but against the Detroit Red Wings, you can't make mistakes. You almost have to play perfect hockey.
Shutting down the Dynamic Duo
Both of Pittsburgh's big stars have played well, but I'm not surprised at what the Red Wings have done to Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby for a very simple reason.
The Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes do not play defence like Nicklas Lidstrom one-on-one. They do not play defence like Jonathan Ericcson one-on-one. And when Crosby finally breaks through the defence and gets a great scoring opportunity, Chris Osgood is there to shut the door.
The Red Wings are a team that is built to shut other teams down and neither the Flyers, nor Capitals nor Hurricanes play defence like that. The Penguins are going through a little bit culture shock that they should remember from last year's playoffs.