2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs Blog - Conference Semifinals

As the Anaheim Ducks and Detroit Red Wings prepped Thursday morning for Game 4 of their Western Conference semifinal series later in the evening, accusations were flying from Anaheim that the Wings were playing dirty hockey.

Pointing to Detroit forward Tomas Holmstrom’s elbow on Anaheim defenceman James Wisniewski and a cross-check by Wings forward Johan Franzen delivered to Anaheim defenceman Scott Niedermayer in Game 3, the Ducks believe the Wings are the ones delivering the cheap shots in this series.

“There were a few incidents that I’m sure left the (NHL) war room scanning tapes,” Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle said. “There was a cross-check delivered in the last flurry in front of the net to the head area on Scotty Niedermayer.”

Ducks defenceman Ryan Whitney took Holmstrom to task for an elbow he hit Wisniewski with during the same sequence that Pavel Datsyuk’s shot struck Wisniewski and sent him to hospital with a lung contusion.

“The elbow in the end looked dirty itself,” Whitney said. “I don’t know if he meant to do it, but he comes around and smokes him in the face with his elbow. It definitely wasn’t a clean blow.”

Holmstrom didn’t recollect delivering the elbow. “I didn’t know that I hit him at all,” Holmstrom said. “I didn’t see him, I had no idea he was behind me. I have no eyes in my back.”

Wisniewski, who won’t play in Game 4, took Holmstrom’s plea with a grain of salt, calling it a gutless play and insisting that had the elbow been delivered by Ducks oft-suspended defenceman Chris Pronger, the media would be calling for action to be taken.

“It was a blatant elbow when I was hunched over coughing up blood, not even battling,” Wisniewski said. “So it shows a little bit of a gutless play by one of their players.”

As much as they’re complaining about the Wings, the Ducks don’t believe the series has been overtly dirty. “I don’t think so,” Whitney said. “Beyond the norm is when Detroit used to play Colorado.

“There’s been the occasional elbow or slash, but this has been like any other playoff series.”

They’ve got to move it

Get out there and get going. That’s the message from Detroit Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom as his club heads into Game 4 with the defending Stanley Cup champions trailing 2-1 in the set, in part due to their slow starts out of the gate.

“We have to have more urgency early in the games,” Lidstrom said. “We haven’t had the quick starts we’ve wanted to.”

One problem Lidstrom believes the Wings need to fix is to avoid first-period penalty trouble.

“Taking penalties early in the game, it slows you down, too,” he said. “You don’t get the rhythm going or they’re going to have a lot more puck possession. You’ve got to get skating earlier.’’

As Game 3 progressed, Lidstrom felt the Wings found their groove and took control, as they’ve done in each of the three games.

“We did most of what we wanted to do,” Lidstrom said. “Areas we can do better is getting there for rebounds. They’re doing a good job boxing us out. We can be quicker on rebounds.”

Blue-line banter

With Wisniewski out of the lineup - he indicated he hoped to be ready to go by Game 5 Sunday in Detroit - the Ducks are expected to insert defenceman Brett Festerling into his spot along the blue-line.

One option that wasn’t available to the Ducks was veteran defenceman Bret Hedican. A Stanley Cup winner with the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes, Hedican, the husband of figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, has not played since Feb. 26 because of a back injury and is still not skating with the team.

The Wings, who opted to pass on Thursday’s game-day skate, will go with the same lineup that’s suited up for every game of the series.

Won’t be long now

That’s the feeling of the members of the Detroit line of Holmstrom, Marian Hossa and Pavel Datsyuk, who’ve failed to score through the first three games of the series.

“We believe we played a strong game (in Game 3),” said Hossa, a 40-goal scorer during the regular season. “It’s a battle out there, hard to fight through, but we just have to keep going.”

Hossa thinks the Wings need to simplify their attacks toward Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller and just get more pucks to the net.

“We got some quality shots,” he said. “We tried to just shoot at his pad and create confusion, rebounds. There is two different kinds of shots. If you feel like you don’t have a good shot, just try to put it in the crease and go in for a rebound.

“There’s lots of loose pucks. We have to keep after them. Sooner or later, the rebounds are going to come to us.”