Here's what I've been thinking about: 3-0 leads vs. 3-1 leads. What's the difference? Why is one so much harder to come back from? Even before this game, this is what I was thinking about. Tell me, which team has momentum? Team X is up 2-1, and they win Game 4. They have the series lead, and then Team Z wins Game 5. Or in another scenario, Team X is up 3-0, and team Z wins Game 4. It seems like they have momentum going into Game 5. It just seems weird to me. I mean, it's perfectly rational -- one team has to win three games to win a series, and the other has to win four. It's just weird that it's happened so rarely. Especially when you think about the momentum involved in each of those scenarios.

Then you think about what a team goes through going back to their own rink having just been trounced 7-1. That is something I wasn't thinking about going into today's game. But it certainly makes me rethink things. In my last post, I basically all but admitted defeat. I said San Jose was much better than Detroit, and that they were outplaying Detroit in another area. That was a good way to justify a sweep. But also, it gives Detroit a reason to believe. (See what I did there? I said the title in the middle of the post. I hate when movies do that. I really liked the movie Doubt, but the last line of the movie was Meryl Streep saying "I have doubts!" and I was like "are you kidding me? Lame!" and then I got banned from the theatre.)

Anywho, I've got a couple reasons to be thrilled with this win. First, think about the last two games. I really do feel like San Jose was the better team through the first three games, but this series could look drastically different with a few different breaks. What if the officiating was bad in Detroit's favor in Game 2. What if it was even reasonable in Game 2? What if Nick Lidstrom's stick didn't break? What if Detroit was up 5-1 two minutes into the second period of Game 3? Like I said in the last post, Zetterberg's no goal was 50/50 and his penalty shot was a very lucky save -- easily could have been 5-1, early. All I'm saying is, despite what I said about San Jose being the better team, this could easily be 3-1 Detroit. Detroit could have won three games in a row. Obviously, games wouldn't have played out the same way, but Detroit didn't play poorly enough to deserve being down 3-1.

Also, this game wasn't just 7-1. It was 7-1 courtesy of six points by Johan Franzen and "four" by Todd Bertuzzi (how does he not get an assist on the goal that he and/or his broken stick touched on the way to the net?) If it was Datsyuk and Zetterberg, that would be cool -- but I wouldn't be as pumped. I've talked all playoffs how Franzen hasn't been up to snuff, and then he looks unbelievably unstoppable tonight. Bertuzzi has been playing pretty well, but as we all know, he's ridiculously streaky and a performance like this -- complete with solid defensive plays as well -- is only going to help going in this miraculous comeback attempt.

But here's the thing -- San Jose can afford to take a night off here. They're still up 3-1. And they're going back home and might be able to translate this embarrassing loss into a good performance at home. But, from a Detroit perspective, we did some damage today. We demolished Nabokov, we frustrated Thornton, we shut down Pavelski, and we got Boyle to score in his own net. All things that are good. I'm just saying, it's still a very far uphill battle. But let's not think of this anymore as Detroit coming back from 3-0. It's 3-1 now. One game at a time. Let's make it 3-2, and come back to Detroit and go from there. That's just how I feel.

Let's keep going from here. One game at a time. I'm not too worried about it. It's still a near impossible feat here, but I'm feeling much more confident than yesterday. If we lose, who cares? This game nearly made it worth it by itself -- proved to me that Detroit can hang with San Jose. But, it also proved that Detroit can handle San Jose, which they still have the chance to do over the next three games. Let's get it done.