I LOVE Posting Paeans to the Wings...

... most especially when they come from sportswriters in opposition cities.  Here's yet another song of praise to hockey's model franchise, this time from Vancouver sportswriter Ed Willes.  The lede grafs:

Over the last 16 seasons, the Detroit Red Wings have enjoyed the most under-appreciated run in NHL history, finishing with under 100 points exactly once in that span and winning four Stanley Cups while establishing the gold standard for organizational excellence over two full generations of hockey.

Are they a dynasty in the traditional sense of the term? That's another question for another time. But what's beyond dispute, aside from the Wings' record, is their influence on the contemporary game. 

In addition to all those wins and all those rings, they've created the template for the modern NHL. As luck would have it, that template -- built on the bedrock values of skill, commitment to conditioning, organizational depth and drafting acumen --is precisely the model the Vancouver Canucks have employed as they've fashioned the NHL's best record this season (ed: a mere one point lead on The Beloved Wings.). 

So have the Canucks basically done to Detroit what the Japanese car industry did to Motown -- taking their blueprint and improving on it? We won't know, of course, for another five months but, in the meantime, there was the evidence to consider from Saturday night's marquee matchup between the kings and the men who would be kings. 

"It always does," Kevin Bieksa answered when asked if the road to the Stanley Cup final still runs through Detroit in the West. "It has for the last two decades. They're an elite team and you can just imagine how much better they'll be when they get all their guys.

The Wings beat the Canucks in a shoot-out last evening and did it without three of their top six forwards.  The injury bug is biting down again on Dee-troit, and hard.  It ain't as bad as last year... yet.  But we ARE holding our breath.

Photo:  The Province.

Update, 1535 hrs:  There's MORE in The Province, this time from Tony Gallagher.  Excerpts:

This constant banter about how Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are the two best players in the game these days is really nothing more than inexcusable hype.

It leaves out a lot of players but the one that really sticks in your craw is Henrik Zetterberg.

[...]

Ovechkin hasn't won dick, his team has underachieved this year largely because he hasn't shown up yet, and HBO is all over the guy. No slight to the outstanding Caps star, but enough.

How about that game in Detroit last month? Datsyuk goes down, so Zetterberg decides to get the tying and winning goals that very night. And he hasn't stopped carrying this team the way Ryan Kesler did the Canucks for a couple of weeks a while back. He does it all the time.

Heh.  I suppose it goes without sayin', but this is a great piece.  Gawd, but I love the hockey press!

(h/t for both pieces to Kukla's Korner... my main source for ALL things hockey.)