The Wings won their Western Conference Finals opener with the Anaheim Ducks, 2-1, last night at the Joe. It wasn’t their best game of the playoffs offensively, but they stood up to the Ducks defensively and came out on top overall, which is what counts, at least until tomorrow.

Some thoughts on the game:

… Dominik Hasek was stellar last night. The goal he did allow was similar to the extremely weak goal he gave up to Marcel Goc in the second round, but I just thought it was a good shot by Kunitz. With the Ducks controlling the majority of play in the game, Dom’s steadiness kept the Wings in a game that may have gotten somewhat out of hand, in spite of the defense’s best efforts. He had a lot of help from the skaters, but when the shot did get through, Dom made the save, often in spectacular fashion. It’s for games like last night’s that Dom is in Detroit and he did not disappoint. Plus, he did it while being on the business end of a concerted effort by Anaheim to crash the net. He was run over and fallen on a number of times, and even took a shot to the face by Andy McDonald. There was a scary moment where Kirk Maltby clipped him accidentally and Dom lay face first on the ice briefly before popping up. I guess he’s still pretty tough.

… On the two goals: the first was pure luck as far as the bounce off Beauchemin was concerned, but, had Hank’s pass gotten through to Samuelsson on the other side of the net, it may have been a goal anyway. Of course, with Giguere playing like he is, we can’t say that with certainty, but I’m confident Sammy would have buried it. The Wings had set up a great scoring chance down low and were rewarded with some luck.

On the second, there’s no way that would have gone in had Holmstrom not been there disrupting Giguere’s view of both Lidstrom’s initial shot and the rebound. Again, it was helped in by Beauchemin, but even JS admitted it was already heading across the line.

Like I wrote last night, I do believe the Wings need to bury more of their scoring chances if they want to come out on top in this series, but any long and successful playoff run has its fair share of fortunate bounces, so if they’re getting those too, all the better.

… The Ducks are a very physical team, but they didn’t really faze the Wings much. It’s easy to see where this series will go, at least as far as rough play is concerned. They’re dangerous offensively, but didn’t have much of a finishing ability, as a number of their chances fizzled out just as they were getting good. I think they tried to be too cute at times with the puck, as their passing left much to be desired in many instances.

… Chris Pronger was not nearly as effective last night as he was with Edmonton, pre-game bravado notwithstanding. I can’t say I’m disappointed, because I love few things more than to see Pronger fail and not live up to the hype. His shot is still scary, though, and he did come close to scoring at one point, but he rang the puck off the post.

… I always thought of Scott Niedermeyer as a clean player, but his antics during a run in with Pavel Datsyuk altered that perception of him in my mind. After he took Pavel out of the play, he proceeded to lay on him and give his head a little shove to the ice. Pavel, not usually the most quick to anger, reacted violently and the two exchanged pleasantries with the help of their teammates. Shoving stars’ heads to the ice is not cool, Niedermeyer.

… Henrik Zetterberg had a good game overall, but he needs to stop skating into three defenders only to cough up the puck. It’s getting really old.

… I thought Todd Bertuzzi was relatively effective when he was out on the ice with Kyle Calder and Valtteri Filppula. I guess we can no longer expect him to play a major role in things, so a fourth line winger position may be the best we can hope for. He certainly keeps that group dangerous and I’m willing to accept that, I suppose. I just wish people would stop making it out like he’s a failure because he hasn’t recreated his best years as a Canuck.

… The penalty kill was great last night, but the Wings are going to need to stay out of the box if they want to have success in this series. Of course, that will be made easier if the officials get the story straight on what they’re going to call because last night they were all over the map. I do not want to see this series degenerate into an NBA-esque penalty fest.