Johan Franzen

Ice hockey, the world’s fastest sport, is played at blinding speed by powerful men gliding along the rink on razor-sharp blades fastened to their boots, swinging fiberglass sticks at a vulcanized rubber disc.

It’s polo played on ice, sans the horses.

The thrills and chills come from the long, effortless strides of a puck-carrier as he bores down at the goalie from the wing, at some 25-30 miles per hour. Until he loses the puck, and the same thing happens, going the other way.

The concept of this year's Red Wings sweeping the Coyotes goes unmeasured when compared to their championship teams of years past.  This is only the first round matchup of the playoffs to end in a sweep. 

While two games does not make a series, the Wings have learned several things during the series so far. 

After sweeping the first two games at home, the series will now head to Phoenix on Monday night.  Will they be able to keep up the pace of the first two games?  They have proven to be a strong road team throughout the season—will that continue as they invade Phoenix?

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Ridiculous officiating aside, the Red Wings put together a solid Game 2 effort, Pavel Datsyuk in particular. The star forward is making Wings fans forget that Detroit's Henrik Zetterberg even had 80 points in the regular season and finished eighth in the league in points.

No one has scored more playoff goals in the last three years than Johan Franzen, who is tied with teammate Henrik Zetterberg for 31 in that time span, but Franzen has done it playing six games less.

The NHL is so full of young talent, it is ridiculous. There are stars such as Crosby, Ovechkin and Richards that fill the NHL with some intense excitement. Then there are the players that do the same, but seem to be passed along with no recognition or praise from the fans or critics. Here are five underrated NHL players.

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Johan Franzen just came off of one of the most dominating individual games of not only his, but of any NHL players career.

Franzen potted five goals in a 7-5 Red Wings win over the Ottawa Senators.

This isn't the first time Franzen has scored more than one goal in a game.

It isn't the first time Franzen has scored more than two or three.

Franzen, or 'the Mule' as his teammates refer to him as, has become one of the best power forwards in the game.

But where does he rank amongst the elite goal scorers in the game?

One thing that puts Detroit above the rest of the NHL, is their ability to draft late and come up with stars nonetheless.

Detroit has been a top team for the better part of the last two decades and have had the joy of drafting late.

Prior to the salary cap era, Detroit built teams through trades and free agency but still had late picks to build through the draft.

Detroit currently has those late draft picks on their roster that turned out to be some of the best players in the league today.

Finally, the Red Wings played their 20th game.

It's been a successful first quarter for the team so far.

Last year the Red Wings were 10-6-4 after 20 games, but everyone knows the struggles they went through and the umpteen amount of injuries that they had.

But this year it has been different.

Though the Red have yet to put together a string of games where they play a full 60 minute game, they still find themselves with a record of 14-4-2.

After Detroit's last game against the Thrashers, it leaves a sour taste in our mouths.

With two days left in the Detroit Red Wing's preseason schedule, Justin Abdelkader got injured and has missed time since.

One preseason game and eight regular season games.