DETROIT -- You can watch hockey for decades, analyze every statistic and sift through piles of predictions and still be surprised by what unfolds when millions of eyes and many lofty expectations settle onto the shoulders and into the psyches of players skating on an 85-foot-wide, 200-foot-long sheet of ice.
The first game of the Stanley Cup finals had been billed as a showcase for precocious Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby, a new phase in the 20-year-old's wondrous career.
It was expected to be a clash of young versus old, of the geezer Detroit Red Wings, including several players who won the Cup wearing the winged wheel in 1997, 1998 and 2002, wheezing and trembling as the young Penguins tried to defeat them with doses of phenomenal skill, dazzling speed and who knows what heights of brilliance.
So much for soothsayers.
Crosby, poked and prodded and bashed from his first shift -- mostly courtesy of Red Wings defenseman Niklas Kronwall -- was held to three harmless shots.
Evgeni Malkin, Crosby's trusty sidekick during the Penguins' march to the Eastern Conference title, was equally ineffective and took only one shot.
In the meantime, the Red Wings put together an impressive 4-0 victory in front of a roaring, standing-room-only crowd at Joe Louis Arena, mixing grit and opportunism with patience while dishing out hits with gusto.
They still had to do without playoff goal-scoring leader Johan Franzen, not yet recovered from a concussion, but they lacked nothing in the depth of their desire or their ability to pounce on their opponents' slightest mistake.
Winger Mikael Samuelsson, a burly Swede not known as a finesse player, scored unassisted goals off Pittsburgh turnovers in the second and third periods. After that, the Red Wings were in firm control, holding the Penguins to four shots in the second period and three in the third.
The Penguins, who hadn't trailed in the three series they won to reach this point, had to find new ways to measure their disappointment.
"Definitely, that was the worst performance of the playoffs," Coach Michel Therrien said. "We didn't compete like we were supposed to compete, and it's a good lesson."
Part of the joy of sports is discovering who competes best when the situation is at its worst, separating those who thrive under pressure and consistently think and act clearly under duress from those who fall apart under pressure.
