THE STANLEY CUP Finals are coming one round too soon again, one round too soon for the fourth straight year. Once again, the Western Finals will produce the most compelling, elite-level hockey of the playoff tournament, and once again the team that emerges from the confrontation will be in line for a coronation when facing the Eastern champion.

Detroit, Colorado and Dallas have dominated the latter part of this decade, accounting for the last four Presidents’ Trophy winners, and the last three Stanley Cup champions. We’ve had a pair of Detroit-Colorado conference finals, we’ve had last year’s Detroit-Dallas and now, justly, we have Dallas-Colorado.

The Red Wings, the Stars, the Avalanche; the NHL’s Trilateral Commission.

We proposed a year ago that the NHL should re-seed after Round Two, thus producing a semifinal set that would give the league its best chance for a competitive, marquee Finals. Under that scenario last year, the Stars would have played the Sabres with the Red Wings meeting the Caps; presumably Dallas and Detroit would have then faced off in the Finals. Now, with a re-seed, the Stars would be preparing for a second consecutive match with Buffalo while Colorado would be meeting the Maple Leafs. And we’d at least have the opportunity to watch Colorado-Dallas in the Finals.

We’d have the chance to watch that but even more importantly, so would the fan have the chance to watch hockey’s best two teams playing for the sport’s grandest prize. Much of course is out of the NHL’s control – it is not the league’s fault that the infrastructure of the Rangers, Kings and Blackhawks has crumbled all at once, thus leaving the NHL without a major-market standard-bearer – but the administration’s ultimate aim should be to produce a showcase Finals. Re-seeding would go a long way toward assisting that goal.

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THE RED WINGS, proud champions, became old and tired all of a sudden. Within eight days, Detroit toppled off the mountaintop and crash-landed in pieces, coming apart without warning, outscored 19-7 in four straight losses, not able even one time to come back and tie the score after falling behind. It’s something we’ve only seen once before, in the 1984 Finals, when the four-time champion Islanders split their first two games at home against the Oilers, winning Game 2 by 6-1 after a 1-0 opening defeat, only to disintegrate in the subsequent three matches in Edmonton. All of a sudden, the Islanders were unable to compete.

The Islanders actually led Game 3, 2-1 early in the second period before losing, 7-2. They lost Game 4 by the same 7-2. To complete the parallel, the Islanders then fell behind in Game 5 by 4-0 before one final spasm produced two goals within 22 seconds before eventually losing, 5-2. Two nights ago, behind 4-0, the Red Wings scored two goals in 29 seconds before eventually losing, 5-2.

Those Islanders never were able to make it back, not even to the Finals. These Red Wins are in a precarious position, as well. Chris Osgood, who played the last two games on an unstable knee, is nevertheless only average in a league crowded with elite goaltenders. Chris Chelios, 37, a major disappointment, has three years left on his contract. Larry Murphy, 38, looked slow. Nicklas Lidstrom, the core of the defense, appears to be leaning toward leaving to return to Sweden … at least for two years, when he can return to the NHL as an unrestricted free agent.

Brendan Shanahan, scoreless against the Avalanche, has one year remaining on his contract before getting to Group III himself, so it’s a sure thing the Red Wings will attempt to use him in a summer deal in order to replenish. Wendel Clark seems way too slow to compete in the up-tempo West. Sergei Fedorov, who has over the last two years collected $30 million of the $38M coming to him on a six-year contract, played all six games against Colorado on the perimeter, as if he had a date at the French Open.

GM Ken Holland was correct in making the present-for-future moves he did at the deadline, in going for a Hat Trick of Cups. Now that the mission failed, however, he is left with wreckage.

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IN 1996, Claude Lemieux broke Kris Draper’s face with a Game 6 hit that epitomized hockey’s greatest rivalry. During that series, the most ferocious of the decade, Scotty Bowman launched a profane parking-lot tirade at Lemieux, who was with his family. A year later, neither Draper nor teammate Darren McCarty would shake Lemieux’s hand on the post-series lineup. Two nights ago, however, all shook hands, and Lemieux had kind personal words for Bowman.

And, for the first time, Lemieux said that he regretted the check on Draper.

“Big-time, because it caused so much adversity and negative press,” he said. “The game is so fast, sometimes things happen. Kris was in a vulnerable position when I hit him, just the way I was in a vulnerable position when I was hit this series [by McCarty]. I could have been seriously hurt on that play, and it would not have been his fault.

“It’s a game, and you try to do everything to win. But it has never been personal with me. You can’t judge an individual unless you know him, and you can’t be hateful toward someone unless you know that individual on a personal basis. I’ve always been willing to shake hands with every player. This handshake is one of hockey’s great traditions, and I have nothing but respect for it.

“And this rivalry between the Avalanche and Red Wings is great for hockey. No one should want it to end.”