Not so heated rivalry

The Detroit-Colorado series has not amounted to much of the animosity that many expected before it began. Of course, that's not terribly surprising when one considers that only a few of the guys on either team actually played in the several series during the '90s where these teams developed a healthy distaste for each other.

What's been even more unexpected is the lopsidedness of the play so far. While I figured Detroit to be a better team, I did not expect to see Colorado get thoroughly outskated for the majority of the first three games. Detroit has certainly capitalized on their opportunities and made the most of the the Avs suffering through the injury bug, but Colorado really hasn't put up the same fight that they showed in battles down the stretch of the regular season and against Minnesota in the first round. Unless there are a couple of turnarounds of epic proportions, it's going to be Detroit and Dallas fighting it out for the right to play for the Cup in May and June.

Detroit could still do a few things better though. It was painful to watch them take two straight too-many-men-on-the-ice penalties last night. Those are brain-dead penalties that shouldn't happen in the first week of the season, never mind the second round of the playoffs. More importantly though, Detroit's dominance of the faceoff circle seems to have diminished. I'm not sure if you can even find this stat anywhere, but I would like to see the faceoff stats that eliminate faceoffs in the neutral zone (because those tend to have very little game impact). Draper and Zetterberg had two of the best faceoff records in the league throughout the season, but I've had the feeling during the last couple games of the first round and throughout this round that both have been losing more than they've won when they count. A little extra focus, especially on those defensive zone draws, might just pay dividends against Dallas. After all, a faceoff win in OT allowed the Stars to set up and score the winner in game three against San Jose last night. That's a scene I'd rather not see repeated against the Wings.