Columnist Dean Juipe: Wings hope to win Cup, appease fans

Dean Juipe

Friday, May 30, 1997 | 11:44 a.m.

THEY'RE NOT notorious losers like the Chicago Cubs.

They're competitive. Sometimes they're even dominant for lengthy stretches.

Yet the Detroit Red Wings haven't won the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup since 1955.

As streaks of futility go, it's one that's overshadowed only by baseball's perennially hapless Cubs. As anyone from Chicago can tell you, the Cubs haven't won the World Series since 1908.

Cubs fans seem to revel in the losses. At the very least, they admirably accept defeat.

By comparison, Wings fans are equally supportive but less tolerant. They don't have the patience of their Chicago brethren.

They'll boo. They'll register their dissatisfaction. They'll chide a player when things go wrong, whereas Cubs fans will embrace the poor sap in his time of greatest need.

Sympathy is not a trait or virtue common among Detroiters. For Detroit athletes, it's produce or feel the heat.

As poised as Red Wings fans are right now to explode into an unmitigated frenzy, they'll come down hard on their hockey heroes if the Stanley Cup slips away this time. There won't be any "nice try" lines if the Wings are defeated by the Philadelphia Flyers in the best-of-7 series for the championship that begins Saturday in Philly.

It may not be now or never, but this is Detroit's seventh appearance in the finals since it last won the Cup and the timing couldn't be better to end that 42-year drought. The Flyers simply aren't as imposing as the team the Wings just beat to reach the finals, the Colorado Avalanche.

"It's going to be close but I like the Wings in six games," said Robert Ross, a longtime Las Vegas hockey expert whose views and insights are available via the Internet (Vegas Insider) and the weekly Las Vegas Sports News. "Defense wins championships and that's what gives Detroit the edge."

Ross has researched the matchup and almost every indicator points to the Wings. One exception: Philadelphia has the home-ice advantage in four of the possible seven games, including the finale.

"The Wings better do it in six because it's too hard to win the seventh game on the road," he said. "There have been 10 seven-game series since 1940 and the home team has won eight of them."

While he's not sure about Game 1, Ross likes the Wings to at least split the first two games in Philadelphia.

"Neither team can get behind 2-0," he said. "If you're down 2-0, forget it."

Teams winning the first two games of the finals have taken the Cup 27 of 28 times, with the 1971 Chicago Blackhawks the anomaly.

A split in Philadelphia would shift the home-ice advantage to Detroit.

And a split is doable for any number of reasons, let alone the fact the Wings have won more playoff games (34) than any NHL team in the last 26 months. They also have 17 players who have participated in the finals, while the Flyers -- who haven't been there since 1987 -- have only seven.

The Wings also handled the Flyers during the regular season, settling for a 2-2 tie in Detroit and taking a 4-1 victory in Philadelphia; they also won both exhibition games by identical scores of 2-0. In the two regular-season games, shots on goal were 65-38 for Detroit.

Leave it to Ross to come up with this savvy, Las Vegas-relevant tidbit: "When (the Wings and Flyers) played in Detroit, it was the only time all season the Wings were the underdog at home; and when they played in Philadelphia, it was highest price for Detroit on the road all year."

So the Las Vegas sports books have liked the Flyers all season and, undoubtedly influenced by the home ice, they're lining up behind them again. Philadelphia is a --160 favorite for Game 1, and it's a --140 to win the series. Detroit is +120 to win the series.

The bookies might have it posted wrong.

"Look at the teams and the goalies Detroit has beaten to get this far," Ross said. "They had St. Louis with (Grant) Fuhr and Colorado with (Patrick) Roy. Those are a couple of playoff-tough goalies.

"The Flyers had it easier. They played Pittsburgh, which has no defense. Then Buffalo, which had to use its second-string goalie. Then the (New York) Rangers, who just didn't have enough bodies."

Plus, there's this bit of ammo: Detroit has outshot its playoff opponents by 215, 620-405, while the Flyers' advantage, while respectable, is 562-394.

As for the goalies -- Mike Vernon for Detroit and Ron Hextall for Philadelphia -- Ross calls it "a wash. Except that Detroit's defense will help Vernon more than Philadelphia's defense will help Hextall."

Vernon's goals-against average in the playoffs is 1.82, while Hextall's is 2.26.

The bottom line, from a Las Vegas perspective, is that the Wings provide good betting value. They look like the better team on paper and the price is right.

That's something the Chicago Cubs can never say.