Phoenix Coyotes' Keith Yandle, left, celebrates his goal against the Detroit Red Wings with teammate Matthew Lombardi (15) in the first period of a first-round NHL playoff hockey game Wednesday, April 14, 2010, in Glendale, Ariz.Ross D. Franklin
Deep down, the Detroit Red Wings' greatest fear - in this year of their remarkable second-half resurgence - was running up against the sort of brick wall in goal that J.S. Giguere presented some seven years ago.
It was a year when the Red Wings were odds-on favourites to win the Stanley Cup and well positioned to knock off the upstart Anaheim Ducks, who happened to have a young coach named Mike Babcock behind the bench at the time. But they didn't, in no small part because they ran into a goaltender that refused to lose.
Ilya Bryzgalov, the Phoenix Coyotes netminder, possesses much the same pedigree as Giguere did back then, right down to the fact that he was apprenticing in Anaheim's system at the time.
Bryzgalov represents Phoenix's best chance of knocking off the Red Wings in the NHL's Western Conference quarter-final - and after gassing a long shot by Tomas Holmstrom in the opening period of Wednesday night's first game, settled down and turned in a strong outing.
Badly outplayed in the first half, the Coyotes hung around the game long enough to unexpectedly, inexplicably score three times on their first three tries with the man advantage, good enough to record a 3-2 win in the playoff opener for both teams, a game played in front a full house of spectators, clad in white T-shirts, at the Jobing.com arena.
Phoenix entered the game with the NHL's third-worst power play - it converted at a rate of just 14.6 per cent during the regular season - and should have been no match for Detroit's 10th-ranked power play. On paper, Detroit held a substantial edge in the special teams department, but you could hardly tell, based on the evidence Wednesday night.
The Coyotes' first power-play goal of the night - off the stick of Keith Yandle - took all of 10 seconds to convert. Wojtek Wolski needed 45 seconds to one-time a Yandle feed past rookie goaltender Jimmy Howard.
On Derek Morris's game winner - his third point of the night - the ex-Flame, ex-Bruins defenceman took two strides in from the point and overpowered Howard with the shot.
Part of Phoenix's strength as a team is its game-planning - and it sure looked as if the book last night was to get traffic in front of Howard and then blast away. All three goals came on bombs from long range, as Bryzgalov held an edge over his younger, more inexperienced counterpart in the Detroit goal, with another one of those games in which he just got in the way of a lot of pucks - sort of like Giguere did, all those years ago.
"Honest mistake - I just missed the puck," said Bryzgalov, of the opening goal, scored by Holmstrom's goal from far out. "I see the shot clearly; I swing my arm and I was a little too early.
"But one of the things I learned from my past is - don't let the bad goals or the bad bounces affect you, because it was just 1-0. There were 50 minutes left in the game - lots of time to play hockey and win the game. That's what was in the minds of every player in this locker room. We continued to work hard and scored three power-play goals."
Something that doesn't happen to the Coyotes every night.
"It's very unusual," agreed Bryzgalov, "but it's great and it came at the right time."
Morris was one of Phoenix's key trade-deadline acquisitions, although the trade that brought him here from Boston was actually a return to his playing home for the previous four years. The Coyotes shipped out Morris as a rental two years ago - to the New York Rangers - and then brought him back this year, after they played themselves into playoff contention and needed to add depth on defence.
According to Morris, a key to the power play's success was winning the face-offs in the offensive zone.
"When you lose that first draw on the PK, you're chasing for 15 or 20 seconds and you don't really get set up," said Morris. "We did a nice job of getting the draw and getting set up.
"We were just trying - when we got a lane, we could see the goalie leaning either way - because Doaner (Shane Doan) was doing such a nice job in front, he's a big body, a hard guy to move in front, and he had some good screens. We just wanted to let him do the job in front."
Detroit entered the game with 1,793 collective games of playoff wisdom. Phoenix, by contrast, sat out its two most experienced playoff performers, defenceman Mathieu Schneider and Robert Lang, who had combined for 199. Lang, incidentally, has been recovering from a lower body injury but is getting close to a return - that is, if the Coyotes want to make a change. Game 2 is Friday here, before shifting to Detroit for a Sunday matinee.