The moment we've been waiting for over the last seven months has arrived. We're now hours away from getting the answers to the questions which have plagued us over that grueling period. The heart-racing highs to the gut-punching lows have all built up to tonight's series. Detroit finds themselves in unfamiliar territory as they start their playoffs on the road against their division rivals the Nashville Predators.

The Preds are a young and hungry team. They're built on the belief that this is going to be their year to make a run for Lord Stanley. Nothing short of a deep run is going to satisfy them and a loss in this series to the Wings will mean more than a "thanks for the experience" to fans of a team that thrashes and swipes angrily at the NHL's "established" contenders. This team truly is one of Predators and they're looking to hunt the very biggest game.

Detroit limped into the end of the season licking its wounds and trying to clear the haze of a battle from its head. We look like weakened prey to a lot of people right now. Will the young and hungry team hunt them mercilessly and finish the job or does the wily and skilled old hunter still have a trick or two up his sleeve for an enemy which can be made to fall prey to its own aggression?

Tonight, is act 1 of the story. We open in hostile territory where a seemingly familiar battleground is transformed into a madhouse of noise and energy. A loss of patience and focus in this act could be a mistake from which the hunter may not recover. He'll have to use all of his senses to direct his own emotions and that of the raging crowd to suit his own will. The hunter steps onto the battleground and surveys the scene; the familiar scents of what's to come enter his nose and he readies himself again.

Let's. Go. RED. WINGS.