Blues Ready For Wings

The St. Louis Blues once had just about the scariest power play in the National Hockey League.

Suddenly, it has disappeared; at the worst possible time.

Unless the Blues can rediscover their touch, they could find themselves eliminated from the playoffs by the Detroit Red Wings for the third straight year.

Detroit, bidding to become the first team to repeat as Stanley Cup champion since 1992, owns a 3-1 advantage in the best-of-7 Western Conference series. The Red Wings would move on to the conference finals with a win in Game 5 on Sunday at Joe Louis Arena.

Clearly, this is not the position the Blues expected to find themselves in. Not after the way they swept the Los Angeles Kings in the first round. The Blues scored 16 goals in those four games. They have scored only nine goals in their four games with the Red Wings.

"They're just outworking us," said St. Louis goalie Grant Fuhr. "That's just plain and simple, and it's showing."

Still, the Blues could help their cause by improving their production when they have a man advantage, especially with so many penalties being called this season.

With about 10 minutes left in Game 3 of their first-round series with Los Angeles, the Blues erased a 3-0 deficit with four goals during a 5-minute power play. They won 4-3.

The Blues scored on more than 22 percent of their power-play chances against the Kings during the first round. And they killed 28 of 29 penalties.

During the regular season, the Blues scored eight power-play goals in 26 chances against Detroit, an impressive 30.8 percent. That helped the Blues earn a 3-2-1 edge in the season series.

In this series, however, St. Louis has been frustrated by Detroit. Passes are being broken up, shots are being blocked. As a result, the Blues are 3-for-29 on the power play.

"I think the biggest thing is when we get it set up, we might be trying to make the fancy play," said St. Louis captain Chris Pronger. "When it was working well, we were just getting it at the point and throwing it at the net and crashing for the rebounds. I think that's something we need to get back to."

The Detroit power play hasn't been lethal, either.

The Red Wings are just 3-for-26 with the man advantage in this series. Overall, the are 10-for-68 in the postseason. But that includes a 4-for-9 performance in Game 6 against Phoenix during the first round.

Detroit's power play, like that of the Blues, was much better before the playoffs began. The Red Wings scored on almost 18 percent of their power-play chances during the season.

"We've made a lot of changes on it, and we've got to get it going," said Brendan Shanahan, who scored Detroit's only power-play goal in five chances during a 5-2 win in Game 4. "It would be uch a bonus to be chipping in on the power play. I think 5-on-5 hockey is the most important. But the way penalties have been coming this year, we definitely want to improve on it."

It took the Red Wings six games to eliminate the Blues in the first round last season and seven games two years ago in the second round. Still, they're not counting on a quick finish this year.

"I don't worry about the numbers," Detroit coach Scotty Bowman said. "We're 3-1 and a game closer. But I've been around long enough to know that they don't give you any prizes for which games you win."

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