Congrats Are Due

 LAS VEGAS, NV - JUNE 22: Nicklas Lidstrom of the Detroit Red Wings poses after winning the James Norris Memorial Trophy during the 2011 NHL Awards at the Palms Casino Resort June 22, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

I'd be seriously remiss if I didn't mention the fact that The Perfect Human won his seventh Norris trophy last night in Vegas.  Here's Scott Burnside, from ESPN's NHL Awards wrap-up:

That plus-minus stat? It's wildly overrated, as Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom won his seventh James Norris Memorial Trophy with a minus-2 rating. Still, Lidstrom was full value for the honor in what was the closest race since 1996.

Lidstrom edged out Nashville captain Shea Weber by a 736-727 margin. For the record, Weber was plus-7 and Zdeno Chara was a whopping plus-33. Chara was hot on the Norris trail, too; he had 33 first-place votes, while Lidstrom had 35 and Weber 32.

Lidstrom had 62 points during the season, second among all NHL defensemen, and logged considerable ice time with injuries to other Detroit defensemen, including Brian Rafalski.

"When I came over, I was just trying to make the team," Lidstrom said. "I figured I'd stay a few years and see what it's like playing over here and then go back to Sweden. I never envisioned myself playing for 20 years and having the success that I've been part of."

Success?  There's The Mom of All Understatements from the always humble and understated Lidstrom.  TPH is simply the BEST defenseman of this generation and (arguably) second only to the great Bobby Orr as the NHL's all-time best at his position.  Success, indeed.

TPH deserves another trophy, too... sumthin' along the lines about havin' The Perfect Family.  Regarde:

Wow.  Them Swedes have GOOD genes, don't they?

In Which We Breathe a BIG-Ass Sigh o' Relief

From redwings.com:

DETROIT – The Red Wings got their man when legendary defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom told team officials last week that he will return for a 20th NHL season.

Terms of Lidstrom’s one-year contract were not finalized before today when the 41-year-old captain and general manager Ken Holland got together in Las Vegas. The Wings' pair is in Vegas for Wednesday’s NHL Award Show, where Lidstrom will learn if he won Norris Trophy for the seventh time in his career. He is also a finalist for the Lady Byng Trophy and the Mark Messier Leadership Award.

[...]

Clearly, the big piece to the puzzle for the Wings was resigning Lidstrom for at least one more year. Last season, he rebounded nicely from a sub-par 2009-10, defying Father Time again, and becoming the first 40-year-old defenseman to score 60-points in an NHL season, and last December, he scored his first and only hat trick of his illustrious NHL career.

[...]

Lidstrom is near the top of every career list in Red Wings franchise history. He is fourth all-time in games played (1,494), and he should likely pass Steve Yzerman (1,514) and Alex Delvecchio (1,549) on that list in 2011-12.

Lidstrom is also third among Red Wings’ greats in assists (855); fourth in points (1,108); and ninth in goals (253), which is 12 behind John Ogrodnick.

He leads all active NHL players with an astonishing plus-429 rating.

It's SO very good to learn Our Captain will return for yet another season.  Nothing lasts forever, of course, not even Hall o' Fame careers.  It's with that in mind I'm thinkin' this upcoming season prolly will be Lidstrom's last.  But wouldn't it be NICE if he went out by skating the Cup around JLA's ice just one more time?  I most certainly think so.

Down. And Out.

Down... for almost 24 hours:

Google’s Blogger service has been offline or unreliable for much of the day, with Blogger-hosted blogs changed to read-only mode, and posts and comments made after 7:37 am PT on May 11, 2011, removed.

In a post on the Blogger help forum, the product team said that it had rolled back a scheduled maintenance release from last night and that its “engineers are working hard to return Blogger to normal and restore your posts and comments.”

Google’s reply for a request for comment was, “The team is working on this.” The company has posted some short updates to the Blogger Twitter account and Status blog, but hasn’t yet explained what’s happening, how widespread it is, and what will happen to users’ content.

Blogger had started rolling out its first major redesign in years in April. The team said in a tweet that the outage was not related to launching the new design.

Update: At 6 am Friday Google said Blogger would be “back to normal soon.”

The posts I put up yesterday still haven't been restored and Blogger has only been back for about a half-hour as I type.  I also noted that videos have gone missing on the blog as well... all ya see is a "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable" message where the vid should be.  So much for putting all yer stuff in the cloud, eh?

―:☺:―

 Photo:  David Guralnick / The Detroit News

Out.  That would be my Beloved Wings, who fell JUST short in their comeback quest last evening.  I had a very brief e-mail conversation this morning with a friend who said she knew I was "going to wax poetic" about the Wings today.  Well, there's this about that:

Ah, the Wings.  You'd THINK an adult... Hell, an OLD man... wouldn't get so wrapped up in something so trivial as the fortunes of a hockey team.  But I kept hope alive, even as the Sharks iced the puck with something like 00:01.4 on the clock.  "Icing!  Face off in their zone!"  That was me to SN1, who was on the phone for the last two minutes of play.  And then time ran out...

I turned the teevee off when the horn sounded, not bein' able to bear the Wonderfulness Of The Sharks from the likes of Versus announcers.  SN1 did the same.

I still can't believe they lost.  Fucking Neemee.  ;-)

I still haven't turned the teevee back on.  That's about as poetic as it gets today.

I'll be rooting for Vancouver in the Western Conference Finals, not that I really give a Big Rat's Ass.  When it comes to the SCF I'll root for whoever wins the East, for the first time in recorded history.

Game Seven, Baybee. Game Seven!

So, the Beloved Wings pull another one out of the hat... and won this one going away.  Big Mo is on our side and Game Seven will be played in enemy territory out in San Jose.  But that's OK.  The Wings can... and WILL... beat those Sharks in their own barn, witness night before last.  That said, there's NOTHING quite like a Game Seven in the Stanley Cup playoffs.  Nothing.

Tonight's game was a nail-biter... scoreless through two periods with the Sharks drawing first blood four minutes into the third.  From the linked ESPN game recap:

Skating with confidence and desperation, the Red Wings outshot San Jose 45-25, but they were on the verge of elimination after Couture batted a rebound out of midair and the puck trickled past goalie Jimmy Howard with 16:06 remaining. The puck barely crossed the goal line before Howard covered it with his glove, but the goal stood after a review.

The Wings threw everything but the kitchen sink at the Sharks yet couldn't seem to get anything past Neemee (whose name I INTENTIONALLY misspelled), who was the difference in the game up to the point that Couture scored for the Sharks.  Jimmy Howard, to his everlasting credit, was just as good as Neemee even though he faced half the shots.  

So, here we are with 16 minutes left in the game and Neemee doin' his very best brick wall imitation through 50+ minutes of play.  I told SN1 that we'd seen THIS movie before... the Wings dominating the game in nearly every aspect, only to have a garbage goal give the accursed Tiburones the lead... and he responded with the UCR cliché: there's a lot o' hockey left.  And so there was.

Yup.  Zetterberg tied it about seven minutes later, Filppula got the go-ahead goal less than two minutes after that and the Wings survived a San Jose power-play to win it.  Oh yeah... Darren Helm (my hero!) added an empty-netter to make it 3-1, the first time we've had anything other than a one-goal game in this series.

It don't get much better than that, Gentle Reader.  Unless it's a Game Seven... for the WIN!  I just hope my heart holds out.

LGRW!

(photo and game stars from ESPN)

Datsyuk and the Art of Elevating One's Game

I went on last evening about the brilliance of Pavel Datsyuk in last night's win over San Jose... not that any of you noticed.  Other people have noticed Pavel's brilliance, albeit not through my pathetic scribblings here at EIP.  Here's Mike Brophy, writing on the subject of this year's Conn Smythe trophy candidates at Sportsnet.ca:

Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit Red Wings: An injured Pavel Datsyuk is better than no Pavel Datsyuk at all. The three-time defending Selke Trophy winner as the NHL's best defensive forward, Datsyuk was a sight to behold Sunday in San Jose. Despite being unable to take faceoffs because of a wrist injury, Datsyuk was the most dominant skater on the ice drawing three assists and playing keep-away with the puck. With so many members of the Wings playing hurt, Datsyuk's wizardry has helped keep Detroit alive.

So: noted.  Dats is great and there's just no arguing that.  What is terribly worrisome for the Wings and the future of their quest for Cup Number 12 , however, is that tell-tale phrase "with so many members of the Wings playing hurt..."  There's a quantity issue in that statement, as well as a quality issue.  It's not the sheer number of injured players, it's WHO is playing injured and how much those injuries are affecting their performance.  Case in point: Johan Franzen wound up sitting on the bench for most of the third period last night, unable to skate because of the pain from an ankle injury.  He's been playing hurt... when he's played at all... for the entire Sharks series.  And how much do the Wings miss The Mule?  Consider these records:

• NHL record for most goals in a 4-game playoff series (9).


• Detroit Red Wings record for most game winning goals in one month, March 2008 (6).


• Detroit Red Wings record for most goals in a single playoff series (9).


• Detroit Red Wings record for consecutive playoff games with a point (12, tied with Gordie Howe)


• Detroit Red Wings record for consecutive playoff games with a goal (5, tied with Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay).


• Detroit Red Wings record for most goals in a single playoff year (13, tied with Henrik Zetterberg).


• Detroit Red Wings record for most game winning goals in one playoff year (5, 2008)


• Detroit Red Wings record for most points in a playoff game (6), May 6, 2010, vs. San Jose Sharks

Franzen is a scoring machine in the playoffs and his absence explains, in part, Detroit's scoring paucity in the San Jose series.  Let's talk Zee, as well, since Zetterberg is mentioned in the same breath as The Mule, above.  Zetterberg missed the entire Phoenix series and hasn't been himself in the Sharks series, although he's improving with every game.  He isn't 100% and that much is obvious.  Those two guys are the biggest and most obvious holes in Dee-troit's offense.  So can the Wings overcome their lack of production?  Yes, with caveats.

Here's what Stu Hackel sez about that (at SI.com):

When a player ups his game the way Datsyuk did on Sunday night, it can lift an entire team. In fact, that’s just what Babcock and other coaches hope for, that their whole club moves up on the intensity scale and wants to win more. The team starts to collectively exert the extra effort to win more of those one-on-one fights for the puck, and come back harder defensively, and block more shots, break up more plays and create more of their own chances than their opponent does. You see one of your teammates give more, and you want to give more, too. It’s contagious at this time of year, or should be, and you don’t win in the playoffs without it.

This is the point in time when we discover if the Wings really have it in them to hold on, hang on, raise their game, and continue to succeed.  This is also the time the younger guys have to step up, when the vaunted depth of the Red Wings needs to materialize in substantive ways.  There's not much doubt the capability is there, all the Young Guns need is leadership and examples to follow.  I think they have both in numerous role models (can you say "Lidstrom?"  Sure ya can.)... but Dats is leading the way right now.

They can do this.

Still Alive

Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom celebrates his first goal with Brad Stuart during 1st period action between the Detroit Red Wings and the San Jose Sharks in game four of their series at Joe Louis Arena, in Detroit, May 6, 2011.  (JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/DFP) (ed:  I LOVE the fans' reactions!  There are more fan shots here.)

It was a near-run thing, but the Wings prevailed in Game Four, 4-3.  That said, it damned well shouldn't have been close, what with the Wings up 3-0 in the first period.  But those Tiburones just won't roll over and die when they should and what's worse is Dee-troit keeps letting them get back in it.  But all's well that ends well... tonight.  Darren Helm got the game winner this evening, and that was the icing on the cake for me.  I'm thinkin' about buyin' another Wings sweater with 43 on the back, mainly coz Helm is rapidly becoming my favorite Wing.  The guy has blazing speed, puck sense, makes the most amazing hits, and is damned good defensively.  As I told SN1 tonight... I have a serious man-crush on this dude.  Watch this and see what I mean:

But back to the Wings-Sharks... I'm not a bright-eyed optimist about the Wings chances of winning four straight, but it HAS been done before.  The Wings need to take it one game at a time, play their best, and beat the snot out of these upstarts.  It's not impossible, just improbable.  And wouldn't that be cool?

Update, 2215 hrs:  Helm's winning goal...



Izzat good, or what??

Finis

Dejected Red Wings fans linger in their seats as Joe Louis Arena empties out after San Jose's Devin Setoguchi scored the overtime game-winner to complete a hat trick. (John T. Greilick / The Detroit News)

Bob Wojnowski, writing in The Detroit News:

Detroit -- Over in a flash, again. Over by the narrowest, nastiest margin, again. And now, the Red Wings' season is nearly over, pushed to the bitter brink by an opponent they simply can't hold off.

The Red Wings blew their chance in this one, no doubt. But the Sharks also took it, and now they're on the verge of taking Detroit's season and snapping it over their knees again. Devin Setoguchi's third goal, 9 minutes 21 seconds into overtime, gave San Jose a 4-3 victory Wednesday, a 3-0 series lead and such taut command of Detroit, it's staggering.

The Red Wings lost the way they've lost many times to this team, an agonizing riddle they just can't solve. They lost on a terrific shot that might have tipped off a stick, and a series that could've turned tight stunningly turned the other way.

It's time to stop being surprised. The Sharks have beaten the Red Wings seven of their last eight meetings in the playoffs, all by one goal. The Red Wings played well at times, with Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk dynamic again, but not well enough to beat the relentless Sharks.

The Fat Lady is in the wings (heh) and she's tunin' up.  Yeah, it ain't over til it's over and all that happy horseshit but we know: it's over.  Bein' down 0-3 in a hockey playoff series is like that ol' sayin' in chess: you're playin' for heart failure... on the part o' the other guy.  These Fish have strong hearts, so that possibility ain't in the cards.  The maddening thing... the thing that drives us Wings fans abso-fukkin'-lutely NUTS... is how close these games have been, especially Game One out in San Jose when the game was decided by a garbage goal in OT.  The outcome of that game set the tone for this series and it's been ALL downhill since then.  

It's just like last year, only worse.  Last year the Wings went into the second round against the Sharks all tired out from a brutal seven game first round victory over those Feral Dogs... this year they swept those same Dogs and things looked pretty good.  Until last night.  And now it's déjà vu all over again.  The Wings will win the next one at The Joe and mebbe even another one after that but make no mistake: it's over.

Sigh.  Oh, well.  Sometimes it bees like that.  That's hockey, and a bag o' assorted other clichés about losing.  Still and even: not fun.  Not fun AT ALL.

Two-fers

First... from the usual source:

Doom and gloom in two different flavors, both of which might could be fatal.

―:☺:―

And then there are these, from the (other) usual source:

J-20 Back in the Air: The Chinese J-20 stealth fighter has reportedly returned to flight testing, completing a publicly witnessed flight in recent days that was much longer than its first reported flight back in January. Britain's Daily Mail reported Tuesday that a J-20 aircraft took to the skies this past weekend from an airfield in Chengdu in southcentral China in a flight meant to coincide with the 60th anniversary of China's aviation industry. It cited a report in a Chinese Communist Party-owned tabloid that included alleged new J-20 photos. US officials have said they were not surprised when China unveiled the J-20 late last year. However, they have acknowledged that the J-20's emergence has shown that China may be making progress in the design of advanced combat aircraft more quickly than the United States had anticipated. (See also Reuters report and Navy Intel Assesses the J-20 from the Daily Report archives.)

Keeping Orbital Operations Safe: The Air Force's Phased Array Warning System radars, known as Pave PAWS, earlier this month played an important role in preventing the evacuation of the International Space Station. Data from their monitoring of a roughly six-inch chunk of debris on a near-collision course with the station allowed the station's three-member crew to remain on board and not have to leave out of safety concerns using Russia's Soyuz capsule. With the help of Pave PAWS tracking data, the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., determined that the debris piece would harmlessly pass by ISS on April 5, much to the crew's relief. The Pave PAWS radars are located at Beale AFB, Calif., and Cape Cod AFS, Mass. The piece of debris causing this scare resulted from China's irresponsible shootdown of a Chinese weather satellite in January 2007. (Cape Cod report via Diana Barth)

Ah, yes.  The Chinese.  They hold trillions of our debt and STILL have enough money to develop fifth-generation fighters and anti-satellite weapons.  As for us?  Barack The Magnificent wants to cut $400 billion out of the DoD budget and build choo-choo trains.  Liberals love trains, yanno.  But fighters?  Not so much. 

―:☺:―

Speaking of two-fers... there were two excellent hockey games on the toob last night, assuming "good" means lotsa goals.  Chicago (finally) found its game and took it to the Canucks last evening, salvaging some pride on home ice while savaging Vancouver in a 7-2 goal-fest.  The game got chippy in the third period, with five Canucks cooling their heels in the penalty box at one point.  The Zebras handed out six ten-minute misconducts in the third period and there were a total of 96 penalty minutes during the game.  One is tempted to deploy the "too little, too late" cliché, but "too little" doesn't work given the number of goals Chicago scored.  Too late fits, though... as 162 teams have tried to dig out of an 0-3 hole in the NHL's storied past, and only three have succeeded.

I have to admit I fell asleep during the second intermission of the Hawks-Canucks game, as the outcome was decided by then.  But I woke up in time to catch the very end of that game and stayed awake for El-Eh - San Jose.  The Kings jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period and increased their lead to 4-0 at the beginning of the second; it looked like it was all over but for sobbing Sharks.  Heh.  Wrong!  The Sharks began to systematically tear down the Kings' castle in a determined goal-by-goal effort, chipping away in a onesie-twosie manner to tie it up in the very last seconds of the second period.  The game went into OT, given the totally defensive, goal-free nature of the third.  The Sharks won it by a 6-5 score three and a half minutes into the OT, capping off an incredible comeback.  You don't often see a team fight its way back from a 4-0 deficit to win... and you don't often see 20 goals scored in only two games, come to think on it.  But you saw that sorta thang last night.  And it was good!

Speaking of good... the Beloved Wings can end the Feral Dogs' season over in Phoenix tonight, assuming said Feral Dogs aren't too inspired by Chicago's last-gasp heroics in their potential elimination Game Four.  Anything can happen, of course, but it's pretty safe to say the Dogs ain't the Hawks.  We shall see what we see at 2230 hrs (ET) this evening.

Let's Go Red Wings!

For Wings Fans Only...

Interesting vid, that.  FWIW... I labored through the lean years as a Wings fan, coming to the party in 1985 and leaving it... physically... when I moved from Detroit to Rochester, NY in 1996.  True to form, the Wings won their first Cup in 40-something years the next season, and I had to watch it on teevee.  Worse, one of my BEST friends had to send me pictures of her and her honey at a local dive-bar (one of my FAVORITE watering holes) drinking from the Cup while we were stuck in Ra-cha-cha.  (Sigh)

No matter.  We remain a fan of the Winged Wheel, wherever I might find myself.  Which is not to say there haven't been glorious moments in the interim, like that night in SFO in 2002 when the Wings eliminated the Once-Hated Avalanche (now I feel only pity for a once great club fallen on hard times) in Game Seven of the Western Conference Finals and went on to take the Cup.  The BEST moment of that playoff year?  Sitting in a sports bar in SFO with other Wings expats while watching a beleaguered Avs fan rip off his Patrick Roy jersey and stomp it when the horn sounded to end Game Seven of the Western Conference Finals.  The Wings won and were off to the SCF... everything after that moment was anti-climatic.

So here we are... about three hours from face-off of Game Three, and here I am... hanging on every moment.  God, but I LOVE this time o' year!

H/t for the vid: the inimitable Kukla's Korner.

Notable and Quotable

From Larry Brooks, writing in the New York Post ("No playing out string in honor-rich NHL")...

The NHL wants to be like the NFL, and I guess which league wouldn't aspire to be granted the kind of sacred cow status pro football has mysteriously and regrettably achieved in this country? 

Last weekend, however, in what was one of the great final weekends in NHL history, hockey reached a status the NFL wouldn't even recognize. 

It was a weekend showcasing the integrity of the athletes who are the fabric of the sport, and the integrity of coaches and front offices around the league that recognized their responsibility to compete when nothing was on the line for their own respective teams but everything was at stake for their opponents. 

[...]

And Detroit, starting with Ken Holland and running straight through the championship pedigree of that organization, recognized its obligation as well -- though the chance to KO the Cup champ Blackhawks was an obvious bonus -- in going to the mat to beat Chicago in overtime when the Wings might have taken the day off to get ready for the first round against the Ducks.

[...]

The NFL would never give you a final weekend like that. The NFL has a 16-game schedule in which teams try until they clinch playoff spots. Then, with league approval, they sit out starters, claiming the risk of injury overrides the integrity of competition. It's a sorry spectacle; scandalous, even.

Well said, Mr. Brooks, and I'll forgive ya the errors in fact about the Wings, given they won that last game in regulation time and our first-round opponent is Phoenix.  You could have mentioned that Detroit lost the services of Henrik Zetterberg, its highest scoring player, in that last, meaningless game due to a knee injury, services that could have a major impact on how far they go in the playoffs this year but thankfully haven't... yet.  Your other points are spot-on and are but a few of the many reasons I don't watch pro football.  Honesty and integrity in pro sports?  Who'd a thunk it!

There's more at the link... Mr. Brooks' piece is a very worthwhile read.

Added, 1230 hrs:  A short blurb from Steve Simmons' sports column in the Toronto Sun:  "And this is why Twitter amuses me: On Saturday afternoon, somebody Tweeted that the NHL has finally found an owner for the Coyotes: Just happens to be Pavel Datsyuk."  OK, that's Inside Tee-Ball stuff, but hockey fans geddit.  That's pretty damned funny, actually.

Slim (Blog) Pickins

We arose much too late, aren't even close to bein' fully caffeinated, and the puck drops at The Joe in mere minutes.  So this is all ya get, Gentle Reader.  Priorities.

Let's Go Red Wings!

Update, 1400 hrs:  That was TOO damned close for comfort... but all's well that ends well:  Wings 4, Feral Dogs 3.  The Wings were leading by 4-1 at the end of the second but the Yotes came back in the third... making it a near-run thing. We won't talk about the piss-poor officiating and questionable calls... But, Hey!

A 2-0 hole will take a lot o' diggin' by the Feral Dogs to come back.  I'm not sayin' it can't be done, because it has been done.  But not this time... bear down, Wings... skate to the throat!

Image courtesy of Trish at the A2Y live-blog.

Added, 1430 hrs:  Why we'll win:
 


Datsyuk is the BEST Russian in the league, mebbe even the best player.  That play was just beauteous... and the reason he's the Number One Star of today's game.

It's UMD

Big Blue did what they could but it wasn't enough.  And Shawn Hunwick turned out to be human after all.

You couldn't have asked for a better or more exciting final.  The game was close all the way, there was excellent goal tending on both ends of the ice, the action was fast and furious, and the game went into OT.  There was an early "no goal" call that, had the goal not been waved off, would have given Michigan the win in regulation.  But it is what it is... and what it is is this:  the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs... your 2011 NCAA hockey champs!

Well played, Dogs!

―:☺:―

Today is the last day of the 2011 regular NHL season and the Beloved Wings play the Blackhawks at 1030 hrs (MDT) this morning.  The Wings have third place in the West nailed down and Chicago is still on the bubble.  As of Saturday night:

A Chicago loss and a Dallas win means the 'Hawks won't make the playoffs, which would be an incredible turn of events if that should come to pass.  Today's game is the second in a home-and-home series with the Wings and if this game is anything like Friday night's debacle the 'Hawks should have nothing to worry about, given the 'Hawks won going away at The Joe.  That game Friday night was one of the worst performances by the Wings I've ever seen.  They really mailed it in Friday -- no jump, no emotion, sloppy passing, give-aways too numerous to mention, and an invisible power play.  Dee-troit fans are tough on their teams when they're not playing well; witness this comment from the live-blog of Friday night's game at The Malik Report:

I’m with you man.  They look like first round fodder.

No, they’re wearing the Winged Wheel…so they look like Champions.  They’re playing like first round fodder.  Who the hell is this team?

Posted by Gabriel from San Diego, CA on 04/08/11 at 08:58 PM ET 

There really IS reason to worry.  The Wings are playing .300 hockey... 3-5-2 over the last ten games... and that ain't near good enough.  First-round fodder, indeed.  The playoffs could be VERY short for Detroit this year.

Yes!

Just finished listening to the Wings game on My Very Expensive Radio and am gratified to report...

NASHVILLE, TN - APRIL 02: Danny Cleary #11 of the Detroit Red Wings celebrates after scoring the overtime game winning goal against Pekka Rinne #35 of the Nashville Predators on April 2, 2011 at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Frederick Breedon/Getty Images)

We won!  I've not posted a lot on the Beloved Wings of late, as their record has been.... ummm... less than sterling as we get down to the end of this season.  But today's game showed the Wings still have a lot of heart left, coming back from a 3-0 deficit as they did in today's game.  We'll not make excuses for their performance over the last ten games even though we COULD, seein' as how the injury bug bit down hard on our Wings.  It's tough to win games when you have to call up a goalie from your farm club to be the back-up for your third-string goalie.... and your leading scorer misses four games out of the last ten due to injury.  But here we are... four games left to go and the Wings with their 11th consecutive 100-point season.  I like the way things look at the moment.

Just sayin'.

Update, 1635 hrs:  Courtesy of KK reader paustn31634, Cleary's winning goal:



Sweet.

Number 19

I was reading Elliote Friedman's blog at the CBC web site this morning and came upon this lil blurb:

Speaking of Pavel Datsyuk, walked with him to a photo of the 2002 Stanley Cup champions. I pointed at Steve Yzerman and the first words out of Datsyuk's mouth were "hockey heart." Then he talked about how much he learned from watching Yzerman during those playoffs, how the captain could barely walk into arenas but when the game started, you couldn't tell. That really meant something to the young Russian. 

Dats nailed it: hockey heart, indeed.  Long time readers know Steve Yzerman (that's his number ascending to the Joe Louis rafters) is the first name in my B-rank of heroes.  I first saw Stevie Y play when I moved to Dee-troit in 1985 and Mr. Yzerman WAS the Red Wings to me for years and years and years, until he retired in 2006.  Gordie Howe is prolly the only other Wing who is more dear to fans than Stevie and not by much.  But Hey!  Who would compare the two, anyway?  There's enough love for both.  And young Pavel is getting there, too... you see a LOT of number 13 sweaters at Wings games.

Mr. Friedman gives good blog... there are 29 other hockey "notes" at the link, including more from/about Dats, Holmstrom, Lidstrom, and Mike Babcock.  And stuff about other teams, too... as if that mattered. 

Weird... But I'll Take It

The strangest thing happened this morning.  The NHL has billed today as "Hockey Day In America" and NBC is carrying three games nationwide... Washington-Buffalo, Philly-Rangers, and The Beloved Wings-Minnesota Wild... beginning at 1230 hrs EST.  So I dutifully tuned in and was chagrined to see BOTH the Amarillo and ABQ NBC affiliates were carrying the steenkin' Caps-Sabres game.  Shit... that sucks now, don't it?  But something happened about three minutes into the game when BOTH affiliates switched to the Wings game.  YES!  We'll take it!

So now we're at the first intermission in the Wings game and the second period period has started in Buffalo, so NBC is back to the Sabres-Caps.  I have NO idea if NBC will go back to the Wings game but I can truthfully say this ain't no way to run a frickin' railroad.  Or a network.  

Ah, wait.  An announcer just said "We'll get you back to the second period of the Wings game in just a few minutes."  I stand corrected.

Let's Go Red Wings!

About Last Night

The three or mebbe four of you Gentle Readers that are hockey fans prolly took notice of my bit in one of yesterday's posts about the Wings playin' at Tampa Bay last night.  Well, I'm pleased to report the Beloved Wings took it to the Lightning in NO uncertain terms last evening, winning by a 6-2 margin.  Stevie Y HAD to feel bad about that, no doubt.  But it was most definitely a weird scene inside the hockey goldmine last night... and here's just a sample:

Come to think of it, there was a little bit of weird for all involved throughout the evening, beginning with an ovation for Yzerman himself, shown briefly on the LightningVision scoreboard, that seemed almost like a “Thank you” from longtime Detroit fans and bested anything in recent memory from the home crowd in appreciation.

Journey may have fabricated “South Detroit” in their overplayed anthem “Don’t Stop Believin’” but it sure seemed like that was a very real location for last night’s game – and the temporary mailing address for the St. Pete Times Forum. 

A formidable sea of red is expected any time Detroit is in town but last night’s crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Red Wings. It wasn’t completely unreasonable to expect the goal horn to blare each time the Wings scored – not with the roar of the crowd that came along with each tally. At one point, there was an audible chorus of boos toward a Lightning logo flashed on the screen that the home fans were not able to drown out.

Just weird.

But bizarro-world truly came to life when the octopi began hitting the ice. Yes, Detroit’s time-honored tradition of tossing dead mollusks onto the playing surface to celebrate Red Wing successes apparently travels well too, as three octopuses made their way to ice level on Thursday. [Note: In researching for today’s piece, it has become clear that both octopi and octopuses are acceptable plural forms of octopus. Learn something new every day…]

All in good fun, one must suppose. Until, that is, a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning ice crew did his best Al Sobotka impersonation when cleaning up one of the fallen cephalopods, picking it up from the ice and twirling it over his head as he skated off, much to the delight of the invading, already frenzied Red Wing portion of the crowd and incensing Lightning fans and fellow employees alike.

Yup... I heard that bit about the Big Al imitation (I won't explain: if you're a Wings fan you geddit, if not... well, explaining would just take too long) while listening to the game last evening on My Very Expensive Radio, whereupon one of the play-by-play guys (a Detroiter) commented "that's not a career-enhancing move."  Indeed.

But one should NOT be surprised.  There's always a large contingent of Wings fans at each and every Dee-troit road game, thanks to the bad economy and emigration from Michigan for that, in part, but ONLY in part.  The NFL's Dallas team (ptui! on several counts) may bill themselves as "America's Team," but it's the Wings who have a truly NATIONAL fan base, especially so among older Michigan expats.  And we KNOW from whence we speak on THAT count.  BTW... you Steelers (ptui!) fans can suck it in this space, too.  Just sayin'.

This is gonna be the Year O' Cup Number Twelve.  I feel it in my bones.  Let's Go Red Wings!

A Good Day So Far

We just finished watching the Wings take the second game of a home and home series with Boston, winning this one by a score of 4-2.  The Wings looked pretty good, coming back from 1-0 and 2-1 deficits to get the win.  The game was egg-zactly what we needed to get our day underway.  Well, a good Wings game, excellent coffee, and a morning cigar... that was all part of a very satisfying whole.  I'm thinkin' we'll do an outdoor Happy Hour for our next act, seein' as how it's already 64 degrees outside.

The ice lake continues to shrink albeit not as fast as we'd like.  We'll be spending this evening at the Holiday Inn Express for the hot shower that's in it.  And a looong soak in the tub after, mainly coz we want to be fresh for tomorrow's routine dental appointment.

I'm thinkin' I might help the melting along a lil bit tomorrow with some assistance from my handy-dandy propane torch.  But I might not, mainly coz the words "hold my beer and watch THIS" come to mind.  We don't wanna live out a Talking Heads song... the first one, anyhoo.



Heh.

Dispatches From the Hockey War

All has NOT been quiet on the Western Front of late and the war was going badly for the Beloved Wings who, prior to last night's game in Boston, lost three of their last four and what's worse... only managed to score four goals in those four losses while suffering TWO shut-outs.  Coach Babcock, quoted in the Detroit News:

Coach Mike Babcock said before the game, "You go through (lulls) every year. When you get it, you don't love getting it, but when you're through with it, you like it. You have to get through it. We haven't played hard or good enough, and when we do play good, it's (only) for a short period of time." 

You can't continue to play like we've been playing, with the energy we've been playing." 

That energy returned against the Bruins.

And so did their scoring prowess... the 6-1 final score against the Bruins included two power play goals.  All sports teams slump at one point or another during a season, and that's particularly true in the long grind that is the NHL's 82-game schedule.  That said, it's difficult to suppress the urge to panic when things start to go wrong.  A good comeback game against a division leading team like Boston... on the road...  helps restore faith.  It also helps to keep things in perspective: while the Wings may have been in a bit of a funk the last week or so they are still the number two seed in the West and lead the Central Division by a comfortable margin.

But I sure would panic if I were a Blackhawks fan.  Last year's Stanley Cup champs are 11th in the West and three points out of the playoff picture as we speak.  (smirk)

Heh

An Occasional Correspondent... who also happens to be a hockey fan... sends this along:

Which begs the question... does the wife also have a Red Wings jersey for those nights where ya score early and often?

Aiiieee

Déjà vu all over again...

The Talking Heads are optimistic and I'm tryin' to stay that way.  Yeah, the Wings have overcome injury adversity before but it takes a LOT out of a team.  This is getting ridiculous... Holmstrom, Stuart, Datysuk, Cleary, Modano, and now both our Number One and Two goalies?  Aiiieee.