Detroit Free Press

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Keith Primeau saw the puck, stole the puck, and whipped it into the empty net with a swing so hard it could have sliced someone's head off. The arena seemed to gasp a final breath, then fell silent.One dead dragon.Three to go."There was anger in our locker room before the game," said Primeau, who put the empty-net exclamation mark on Sunday's 4-1 victory, which polished off Winnipeg and advanced the Wings to the playoffs' second round. "Normally, we're doing a lot of talking, pumping each other up. Today, it was just quiet."

Travis Conlan, stuck with the worst job of the day, likened it to "being in a graveyard and running into tombstones." The tombstones were the Indiana players who, in the second half of Sunday's game, kept smacking into Conlan in order to free a bouncing freshman named A. J. Guyton.And if they were the tombstones, Guyton was the ghost.

TEMPE, ARIZ -- Hey, it's hot in the desert. Things melt. Like your defense. Your concentration. And, apparently, your calculator.How else do you explain coach Bobby Ross deciding Sunday to go for a two-point conversion late in the fourth quarter -- when logic said go for an extra point?What was he doing? I know about aggressiveness. But there is no way, when you are down 23-19 late in a game, that you don't go for an extra point, pull within three, and hope a field goal ties it and takes you to overtime.That's Beginners Coaching. Or Math 101.

So many voices inside Doug Collins' head, like an army of transistor radios all playing at once. There is the voice of his mother, urging him to succeed, and the voice of his father, stricken with lung cancer, saying, "Doug . . . I don't want to die."There are voices of his two grown children, whom he adores, and voices of players, coaches, friends, philosophers -- all these voices, snapping sparks in his brain, making him run, then stopping him in his tracks.If you wondered why Doug Collins is so frantic on the outside, you should see what's going on inside.

The Philadelphia Eagles made chopped liver out of the Lions in the playoffs last Saturday, but coach Ray Rhodes still hasn't eased up on Detroit.Rhodes couldn't help but get in one last dig on Lions tackle Lomas Brown's ill-fated victory guarantee."For a guy like myself, I like that kind of stuff," Rhodes said. "That was the missing ingredient that I needed."Rhodes wouldn't reveal what Brown said to him in their brief postgame conversation, but one Eagles assistant coach said Brown told Rhodes to keep him in mind when free-agency season begins.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- I am standing over a cauldron of hate. I am watching it bubble and boil. I am getting in the mood for tonight's showdown between Michigan State and No. 1-ranked Duke."Igor, give me the photo of the coach!" I scream. "We will burn him in hatred! Ahahahahahaha!""Yessss, maaaaster," Igor says.Igor hands me the photo of Mike Krzyzewski, Duke's coach for the past 19 years."Look at how evil he is!" I exclaim, ready to drop his photo into the smoldering pot. "Look at how, uh ...uh . . ."

Ihand the map of Sweden to Nick Lidstrom. I ask him to circle his home town. It's in the southern half of the country. "Vasteras," he says. "Very nice place.""And where is your teammate Tomas Holmstrom from?" I ask."Tomas?" he says, snickering. "He's from ...up north."I go to Holmstrom. I hand him the map of Sweden. He circles his hometown. It is indeed in the north. "Pieta," he says. "Very nice place.""And where is Lidstrom from?""Nick?" he says, rolling his eyes. "He's from ...down south."

* Detroit 28, Tampa Bay 10: The Bucs, having missed the playoffs, can't wait to end the season and get out in the sun. Wait a minute. They live in the sun. Pick vs. spread: Detroit.* San Diego 30, NY Giants 20: The Giants can't wait to finish this year and get the heck out of New York. But then, that goes for anyone who lives there. Pick vs. spread: San Diego.