The puck dropped for game two on Saturday afternoon. Patrick Kane scored the first goal of the game to give the Blackhawks the 1-0 lead when Patrick Sharp stole the puck from Brendan Smith and fed the puck to Michal Handzus who gave the puck to Kane for the one timer. The second period went a little differently for the Blackhawks. Giveaways gave the Wings multiple chances on Cory Crawford. Damien Brunner tipped Jakub Kindl‘s shot into the net almost 3 minutes into the period. The game went back and forth, but Detroit controlled the period for the most part. With just under 4 minutes remaining, Brendan Smith scored to give the Wings the 2-1 lead. Henrik Zetterberg made a great play to get control of the puck and fed the pass through defender Duncan Keith‘s legs to Smith for the goal. The second ended with Detroit in control of the game and the score. Johan Franzen scored to give the Wings the 3-1 lead when Jonathanval Ericsson gave Franzen a beautiful pass to put Franzen on a break away with about 12:30 left in regulation. Valtteri Filppula added another goal for Detroit to give them the lead 4-1 when Zetterberg dropped the puck to Filppula on a 3 on 2 for the goal. The game would end with the same score to tie the series up at 1.

Detroit’s third line has continued to scored and continued to play well. Damien Brunner has two goals in the series so far, Gustav Nyquist and Joakim Andersson have also been playing well and with a lot of energy, and they’re giving Mike Babcock great depth. Henrik Zetterberg has continued to play well into this series, he had 2 assists in game two to add to his total of 10 points thus far. Chicago looked great in game one, they looked ready to take control of this series and close Detroit out early. The defense was solid in game one, they capitalized on scoring chances, and they controlled the final 40 minutes of play. Detroit bounced back though, and proved that they won’t be walked through like the Wild. This is going to be a great series, and now it looks like Detroit believes they can win. Game 3 will be on Monday night in Detroit. Chicago failed to capture their advantage of home ice, and now go into Hockeytown with the series tied at 1 a piece, and Detroit now has home ice for the next to games.

This will be one of the better series I believe we’ll see this season. I wrote a piece shortly before the playoffs started about why this would be such a great series. Both goaltenders have played well thus far in the playoffs, and both played well against each other in the season series. The Blackhawks didn’t see many chances on the powerplay. They converted on 2 of only 13 chances in the first round, but they were perfect on all 17 penalty kills. Detroit’s powerplay has did well in the first round converting on 6 of 25 powerplay opportunities. This is going to be a key match-up in this series, if Detroit can get the powerplay going against Chicago, it could cause a lot of problems for the Hawks.

The Wings keys to winning will ride on Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk, as well as Jonathan Ericsson and Niklas Kronwall on the back end. Datsyuk had 7 points in 7 games in the first round, and Zetterberg put up 8 in 7 games. If the two stars for Detroit can continue to put the puck in the net, it will give Detroit a much better chance of slipping passed the Hawks. Ericcson and Kronwall shut down the top line of the Ducks, making it very hard for them to get many chances. They’ll have their hands full again with the sharpshooters for the Blackhawks.

The Blackhawks key to winning is going to be about special teams and defense. The Hawks were shorthanded 17 times in the first series against the Minnesota Wild and killed all of them off. The defense for the Hawks shut down the Wild offense and made it very difficult for them to sustain much pressure for any period of time. The Hawks weren’t awesome on the powerplay this season, but if they can start converting on the chances Detroit will give them, they have a huge advantage with such a good penalty kill. Marian Hossa and Patrick Sharp played well against the Wild, and it will be expected out of them in this series as well.

When it’s all said and done, I believe the Chicago Blackhawks will too much for the Red Wings. It will be a great series to watch, and it will also be the last time these two teams meet in the playoffs unless it is in the Stanley Cup Finals with the Wings moving back east next season. I believe the Hawks will move on to the Western Conference Finals in six games. Let the octopi fly!

With that, here’s the latest injury news from around the league.

Ted Kuflan of the Detroit News finally reports some good news for the Detroit Red Wings as the club is expecting both Darren Helm and Todd Bertuzzi back for tonight’s game against the Minnesota Wild.  While Jonathan Ericsson and Jakub Kindl could also return, giving the Wings blue line a much needed shot in the arm.  Lately the Wings have been decimated with injury to their back end that led to the signing of veteran Kent Huskins.

Bruce Garrioch reports via Twitter that forward Stephen Weiss is battling a lower-body injury.  It’s uncertain how much time Weiss will miss.

From the dessert, Mathew Lombardi left last night’s game with an upper-body injury and did not return, courtesy of the official Twitter account of the Phoenix Coyotes.  Like Weiss, it is not yet known how long Lombardi will be out.

Finally, from the city of brotherly love, the Flyers’ Andrej Meszaros is considered day-to-day with a shoulder injury according to Sam Carchidi via Twitter.

Flyers forward Daniel Briere, who has yet to play a game this season, has a 50-50 chance of returning this weekend according to GM, Paul Holmgren.  MyNHLtraderumors.com captured the quote from Holmgren.