DETROIT — If the Detroit Red Wings finish off the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight, the Stanley Cup — a gift to the Dominion of Canada from a departing European, Lord Stanley — will be hoisted overhead for the first time by a European NHL captain.
That would be the Red Wings’ Nick Lidstrom, the Swedish defenseman who succeeded Steve Yzerman as the man wearing the “C” along with the Winged Wheel on the front of the sweater.
The Wings will take a 3-1 series lead into Game 5 of the Finals tonight at Joe Louis Arena, and a clinching victory would give Detroit its 11th championship — the third-highest total in NHL history, behind only Montreal (23) and Toronto (13).
The Maple Leafs haven’t won the NHL title since 1967, or the final season of the “Original Six” era, and a 2008 championship would be Detroit’s fourth from 1997 to the present. Lidstrom, plus current teammates Kris Draper, Kirk Maltby, Tomas Holmstrom and Darren McCarty, were on the previous three title teams, but the difference now is Lidstrom is wearing the “C” and would be the first to touch the Stanley Cup.
“It’s been brought up a lot from the media,” Lidstrom said of the European captain issue after the Red Wings’ 2-1 Game 4 victory in Pittsburgh on Saturday. “But I tried not to think about that. I’m trying to think more about having a chance to win another Cup.”
Lidstrom also was on the Swedish Olympic team that won the Olympic gold medal in 2006 in Italy, four years after the Swedes were knocked out of medal contention by Belarus in Salt Lake City and were treated as national disgraces in media coverage in their homeland.
“Well, it’s a little bit different going to play in the Olympic tournament or playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs,” said Lidstrom, favored to win the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman for the sixth time when the awards are announced next week in Toronto.
“You’ve been with a team throughout the whole season. You’ve had almost two months of playoff hockey.”
The Wings are 15-5 in the postseason — taking six games to beat Nashville and Dallas and four to sweep the Avalanche before this series — and are trying to remind themselves of the Stars’ refusal to fold in the conference finals in a similar situation. Dallas won Game 5 in Detroit to prolong the series before the Wings rebounded to win on the road and advance to the Finals.
“I think in the Dallas series, we came out . . . nervous,” Detroit defenseman Niklas Kron-wall, another Swede, said Sunday of the Wings’ previous Game 5. “We were just sitting and waiting for them to come at us. We can’t do that. I mean, it’s the Stanley Cup Final.”
The Wings also apparently will have Holmstrom back in the lineup tonight after he missed Game 4 with a hamstring injury. After the Wings’ optional Sunday skate, both Detroit coach Mike Babcock and Holmstrom, the pesky Swede, said he would play.
Before leaving Pittsburgh on Sunday, Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said he and his teammates “know what we have to do. We’ve got to win to stay alive. It’s pretty clear and simple. So that’s the way we’re looking at it. We’re looking to be desperate here (tonight). And all we focus on is winning that game.”
Much of the heat for the Penguins’ shortcomings in the series is continuing to be directed at Evgeni Malkin, who came into the Finals with nine goals in the postseason but doesn’t have a point and is a minus-3 against the Wings. So far, the big Russian — at 21, a finalist for the Hart Trophy along with Alex Ovechkin and Jarome Iginla — has been awful in the biggest series of all.
“Whether it’s him or anyone else, it’s a tough time of year,” Crosby said. “It’s the time when you have to fight through a lot of things. It’s not always easy. And that’s just part of the playoffs, and you have to battle through that. It’s a test mentally, too. So he believes in himself. We believe in him. And we’ve gotten this far . . . together.”
It could end tonight.
GM meetings today.
The NHL was confident enough that there wouldn’t be a sweep in the Stanley Cup Finals to have provisionally scheduled a general managers meeting on the day of Game 5.
So Avalanche GM Francois Giguere is expected to be among those attending the session today at the Marriott Renaissance Center on the Detroit waterfront.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
