Bring 'em on! Red Wings are next Blackhawks challenge

Now really, isn't this what everyone wanted?

The Blackhawks found out who they'll play in the Western Conference finals Thursday night when Dan Cleary scored a late goal to give the Red Wings a 4-3 win over Anaheim in Game 7 of their West semifinal series.

Cleary scored the winning goal by stuffing the puck past goalie Jonas Hiller after Henrik Zetterberg flipped it into the crease.

"You know Z was in the corner made a good play, put it on net, I stayed with it and got it under Hiller," Cleary said.

The best-of-seven conference finals between the Hawks and Red Wings will start Sunday afternoon at Joe Louis Arena.

"I think everybody has been look looking forward to this," Cleary said of a showdown with the rival Hawks. "Chicago played us well all year, and they have a good, young team. We have to get fired up for that."

The Hawks were 2-2-2 in six games against Detroit during the regular season. Two of those losses were in shootouts. The Hawks beat the Red Wings in the final two games of the regular season.

The Hawks and their fans need no introductions when it comes to the Red Wings. The names roll off the tongue: Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Hossa, Frazen, Osgood and Holmstrom.

"They probably have more star power than any team in the league," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said.

Not to mention an offense more potent than the Hawks' with an NHL-leading 295 goals during the regular season. That was 31 more goals than the Hawks and 21 more than the team with the second most.

"Detroit is arguably the best team in the league," Quenneville said. "I think coming off winning the Cup, they know what it's like to win and know what it's like to play big games.

"They certainly have several high-end offensive guys and maybe the best player in the league in Lidstrom on the back end. They're strong and they're very explosive. It seems like every game we played them this year there's a lot of goals being scored."

The Red Wings have the best power play in the NHL, which makes it vital that the Hawks stay as disciplined as they did against Calgary and Vancouver in the first two rounds.

Detroit's power play ranked first in the NHL during the regular season with a better than 25 percent success rate.

"We respect the danger of their power play," Quenneville said. "There's a lot to be concerned about with Detroit."

It might be a series decided by which team plays the best team defense. The Red Wings certainly create matchup problems for the Hawks, who can't have Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook on the ice all the time.

Keith and Seabrook figure to play against Datsyuk and Zetterberg provided Red Wings coach Mike Babcock keeps his two stars on the same line.

"What can you say about Detroit?" Patrick Kane said. "They've been one of the best teams in the league for a long time and this year is no different.

"They've got so many good players over there. It would be a tough task to beat them, but I think we're up to the challenge. I think we have a pretty good squad and a lot of players coming into their own.

"We feel we're a good team. We'd like to know how good we can be and we'll see that in the next series and the next round and hopefully advance even further."

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