DETROIT The last time the Detroit Red Wings saw Chris Pronger during the month of May, he stomped on their playoff hopes like an elephant on a mouse. Now he's with a better, deeper and more talented team, and once again, the Red Wings must go through him, or go home.

Pronger headlines a stellar cast with the Anaheim Ducks, whom the Wings play in the Western Conference finals beginning Friday at Joe Louis Arena. The teams split the regular-season series with two victories apiece, both winning at home, but regular-season trends rarely carry into the playoffs.

The Wings went through Calgary and San Jose to get to this point. Now they're up against a team with a backend of Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer, a clutch performer in Teemu Selanne, and a superb goaltender in Jean-Sebastien Giguere, the guy who foiled the Wings in the first round in 2003.

"Anaheim is overall an even better team," Dominik Hasek said shortly after the Red Wings clinched their second-round series with a 2-0 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Monday night. "They have good goal-scorers, they have great defense with Niedermayer and Pronger especially, and very good goaltending."

It's going to be incredibly hard for the Red Wings to mask the loss of Mathieu Schneider and Niklas Kronwall, two defensemen who come in right behind Nicklas Lidstrom in where they rank among the top four, because the Ducks have two terrific offensive lines in Chris Kunitz-Andy McDonald- Selanne and Dustin Penner-Ryan Getzlaf-Corey Perry, plus a solid shut-down line in Travis Moen-Rob Niedermayer-Samuel Pahlsson.

Maybe the only way Red Wings advance, in light of the losses on defense, is if all four lines relentlessly pursue Pronger and Niedermayer. Pronger who anchored Edmonton's first-round upset of top-seeded Detroit a year ago before he was traded in the off-season to Anaheim is 6-foot-6 with a reach that seems to span the width of the rink. He leads the Ducks with 11 points in 10 playoff games and is plus-four. His average ice time is 31:13, the most of any skater in the playoffs. At 32, he's far more poised than the guy the Red Wings used to regularly contain in the playoffs when Pronger was with the Blues.

Pronger plays with Sean O'Donnell, a move that allows the Ducks to have Scott Niedermayer out with Francois Beauchemin.

"We've got to be on them all the time so at the end of the series they're going to be a little bit tired," Henrik Zetterberg said.

Incidentally, Lidstrom, Pronger and Scott Niedermayer are the three finalists for the Norris Trophy as outstanding NHL defenseman. Lidstrom won the award in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2006, Pronger in 2000 and Niedermayer in 2004.

"With Pronger and Niedermayer, Beauchemin and O'Donnell being their top-four D, we have to, like we did against Calgary and San Jose, get on their defense and force them to go back and turn," Dan Cleary said.

The Red Wings had success against the Sharks for several reasons their lack of a capable point man and the ineffectiveness of second-liners Patrick Marleau and Bill Guerin, which allowed the Wings to focus more on Joe Thornton. Thornton did what he wanted the first four games of the series, producing one goal and four assists, but by Game 5 he was slowed by wear and tear. It says something about the Sharks that their overall best player against Detroit was hard-nosed defensive forward Mike Grier, who pushed the Red Wings at both ends of the ice.

But the Ducks are a different animal. They rolled over Minnesota in five games in Round 1 and Vancouver in five games in Round 2, thanks partly to balanced scoring, a hallmark of any successful playoff team (and something the Wings have relied on every year they've gone deep). Getzlaf and Pahlsson have seven points, and McDonald has four goals among six points. Selanne and Moen each have six points. Plus, there's the production they get from Pronger and Niedermayer.

"They've got a real good back end, great speed in McDonald and his unit with Selanne and Kunitz," said Mike Babcock, who coached the Ducks from 2002 to 2005.

There is some carryover from the Babcock-coached Ducks team that upset Detroit in Round 1 in 2003 en route to the Stanley Cup Finals, there is one very significant change and his name is Pronger.