The Pistons went to work, worked hard, and got the job done.

The Lakers showed up, fumbled around, and left halfway through.

The Pistons demonstrated what the Wings learned the hard way: A team can always beat an individual. The era of “a superstar can carry you through” is over. I’m not a huge basketball fan, and I admit, I’m bandwagonning onto the Pistons. But watching them destroy the Lakers was so much fun.

Here’s hoping the Wings learn from this.

I saw a great quote from Rick Fox of the Lakers on ESPN: “A team always beats a group of individuals. We picked a poor time to be a group of individuals.”

So, congratulations to the Pistons, and to the fans who believed in them all season.

The Wings are out, and Calgary advances. A hundred sportswriters and a thousand armchair pundits will all be writing articles today on how they were outplayed, they were too old, too injured, and any number of other reasons why. Personally, I don’t care why. They played a better team, gave a good fight, and were beaten.

Now I almost know how Blues fans feel.

Almost.

Truth is, we had a good year. We had good talent, but we lacked a critical element: hunger. We lacked it last year, and in 2001 as well. Hunger drives a team to excel, not talent and skill. It’ll be an interesting summer to watch the team rebuild. I expect that a lot of familiar faces from the last 10 years will be gone. A team pays for talent up front, but doesn’t reward a lack of performance. Winning the President’s Cup doesn’t get you a parade down Woodward.

But looking back, we did win 3 Cups in the last 7 years. We back-to-back’d, which hasn’t happened since. They gave us memories to ease the painful “Dead Wings” of the ’70s and ’80s. They’ll be back, if in different form. New faces, new talent, new hopes.

I still believe.

Wings lost. 3-1 in Nashville. Bah.

I know, they can’t win all of them.

2 down, 14 to go.

The Wings beat the Avs yet again, this time 2-0 in Detroit. This is becoming a habit!

The Wings beat the Avalanche 3-1 in Denver to tie Tampa Bay again in the race for the Presidents Cup. They play again on Saturday at home in Detroit. Manny Legace played a phenomenal game, once again proving that he deserves to be the starting goalie for the playoffs. He’s been backup for some of the best NHL goalies, but this season he’s proved that he has the ability to carry a team to and through the playoffs.

IMO, anyway. I’m not Dave Lewis, just an armchair fan.