I'll be taking the weekend off from blogging and other tomfoolery as we lost a family friend unexpectedly yesterday. This added with other plans has pushed hockey to the back burner for the immediate future. The regularly scheduled nonsense will pick up next week.

Happy Halloween everyone.

Game #11 -- Red Wings @ Oilers

EDMONTON OILERS 6 - 5 DETROIT RED WINGS (SO)


I'm calling "turtle" on this one. Too much to process in too short of a time.

Forget about how awful the game looked before it got to 5-1. Forget about the surprising names that got on the score sheet to bring us back. Forget about that damn pig flu.

Just know that Fil is done for the next two months and that blows an incomprehensible number of balls. Not just for the team, but for him; he's played too well for that to happen. That sucks. Sucks puckered asshole.

'09 can eat a veiny.

Imitation Cherry

DETROIT RED WINGS @ EDMONTON OILERS

9:00 -- Rexall Place

Wings: 4-4-2, 12th in Western Conference | Oilers: 5-6-1, 8th in Western Conference
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TTD Oiler blog of choice: Black Dog Hates Skunks

"Oh what a difference four days makes, Saturday evening the Oilers were on top of the world, having dispatched the BJS on Thursday with such elan that we were breaking out the Bananarama and Dexy's Midnight Runners, oh baby the 80s are back! And the flu ridden lot of them came back from their little trip oh and two and then last night they stumbled and now Detroit and Boston are on the horizon and folks are talking about trading the whole lot of the sorry bums, again."

*****


I didn't realize that this wasn't the real Grapes until the video was almost done, the impression is that dead on. It's a guy named Rodney Dean, and this is a made-up story using names of the 2008-09 Edmonton Oilers.




By the way that's the corniest title I've ever written. I hate writing titles.

Game #10 -- Red Wings @ Canucks

DETROIT RED WINGS 5 -4 VANCOUVER CANUCKS


Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ..............

• From the Twitter of Babcock's Death Stare: "JIMMY HOWARD FOR PRESIDENT OF SPACE"

• Vancouver scored 30 seconds into the game. Me and my friends tuned it 40 seconds into the game. That was a very disappointing feeling. Osgood? More like Osbad. Do you get it? Do you understand my jokes?

• Young James was dynamite when he had to be, except for a 5-on-3 goal that shouldn't have taken place to begin with. Good on him to finally get a win. I loved the stone job he did on Kesler in the 3rd period, who made a world class move in getting around Ericsson and then doing what 50% of people try in NHL 10 online: deke to the inside like you're coming out front, but instead swoop behind for the wrap around. Kesler played his move to perfection and was still denied.

• Ryan Johnson going headfirst into the boards was a horrifying scene. I haven't seen an update on his condition other than he can move his limbs and stuff. I thought the dude was fucking dead on impact. Not really, but still.
  

• I seem to recall once getting involved in a minor intertube squabble with a maternal memed troll at a certain acronym-heavy website over the skating prowess of Pavel Datsyuk. I hope this person saw Pav's first goal of the season. And congratulations if you actually understood what I just said.

• Employee #44 once again looked pretty good.

• Did Fil get faster somehow, or am I just paying less attention to his hair? I liked that burst of speed he used to draw a hooking penalty (which resulted in a goal, and also prompted Ken Daniels to say the words "PENALTY SHOT???" for like the 9ooth time.)

• Datsyuk is on my fantasy team and I forgot to set my lineup yesterday, so he was benched. Yeah.

• I like having Brad May around.

• I don't mind Holmstrom either. I love this man. He's been nothing short of his own ESPN Classic episode through the first ten games.

• The Triple Deke's top 3 Wings

#3 ~ Tomas Holmstrom (1 goal, 1 assist). Luongo's nose is brown after Homer's performance.

#2 ~ Pavel Datsyuk (2 goals, 1 assist). Probably could have had six or seven goals if he wasn't collecting social security and pooping himself.

#1 ~ Jimmy Howard (20/22 on saves). He really showed his sack tonight. Getting dropped into a smorgasbord of suck after Ozzie's corpse was removed, and going against the elite-iest of goalies, he didn't disappoint.

And all this time you thought Croatians were Flames fans

For our newest feature that is destined to be neglected within a week's time, we are going to capitalize on the annoyance popularity of the Shane Doan masterpiece by posting a random video on gamedays that relates to whoever the Wings are playing. There are really no guidelines; the video may be funny (intentionally or not), bizarre, painful, scary, boring, erotic, deep fried, peanut-buttery or completely imaginary. Contributions are encouraged but don't get pissy and call us dicks if we don't use your stupid fucking excuse of a suggestion. You piece of shit. Mainly this will serve as a lame pregame thread while the rest of the Wingosphere puts forth an actual attempt to inform you on stuff before the puck drops.


DETROIT RED WINGS @ VANCOUVER CANUCKS

Game #9 -- Red Wings @ Avalanche

COLORADO AVALANCHE 3 - 1 DETROIT RED WINGS
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After the football game, I watched last 25 or so minutes of this one with the enthusiasm of a corpse. Think 'Mary Kate Olson staring at a cheeseburger' and you can picture it pretty well. This will be brief.

• In reading dozens of different takes on the game this morning, my brain is scrambled over the varying number of opinions. Most seasons it's pretty concentrated to one area, but at the moment you have a Wing-nation spectrum that ranges from "They're on the cusp of turning it around" to "We're fucked". It's incredible. And I think I read too much ... I have one opinion as I go to bed, and I wake up and read something totally different from commenters or writers whose thoughts I hold in high regard and it gets me thinking too much.

• Example: Malik's recap was viscerally intense. I think he killed a guy while writing it. The gist of it being that the 49 shots-on-goal masked an outing that wasn't fundamentally sound in any area of the ice. He would also like you shut up.

• On the other end, at the new and improved Babcock's Death Stare, Kyle chalks up a ton of credit to Craig Anderson and tries to keep things optimistic: "For now, it's not the end of the world. It's not time to shake it up with a trade, but it's just time to go out and win."

• And the second goal that Howard gave up: I have rarely seen anything like this. You either think that Jimmy is completely absolved because it was a great shot/Lebda deflected it, or you want to eat his children. There is no middle ground. I've read that Jimmy was correctly moving with the shooter from right to left, and I've also read that he wasn't. I never played goalie on my shitty hockey teams as a kid so I don't have any kind of expertise in this department. I thought it was more shot/Lebda than Howard after watching it.

• #44 had his best game of the season by far. Brad Watson's a dick.
  

• The Lebda-Ericsson pairing has to change. Right now. It's not working. Those two shouldn't even be allowed to look at one another.
  

• I'm not panicking yet. Things are going to turn around within the next couple weeks because the "cap excuse" is bullshit and this team is still way too good, and I don't buy that Babcock is such a stubborn meathead that he won't make necessary adjustments or preparations.

Brief PHX game thoughts

This is sad. I've already tried and failed to go to sleep at 1:00 AM on a Friday night. There is definitely nobody worse at being a college person than me.

I thought I'd kill a few minutes by summing yesterday's thoughts:

• Datsyuk is as ridiculous as he wants to be. He had 3 or 4 of those "wow" plays that make you laugh because you don't know what to say about it. I loved that move he made in the 1st period, coming down the right wing where he was looking off the defender, staring 90 degrees to the left as if he was going to pass, and then he kept the puck and deked around him untouched. I don't know how his decrepit 31 year-old ass does it. Must be 'roids. And man, the awareness to pull to a stop and spoon feed Brett Lebda for his last ever NHL goal -- it's like he has the mental clarity and creativity of a 6th grader.

• Hank and Pav should just stick together from now on. They weren't infallible as a unit last night (nobody was), but they had their moments. They always do.

• May, 2009: we were all lining up and dropping to our knees in front of Johnny Ericsson. October, 2009: He's been on the ice for twice as many goals as the next closest Wing defender. It's hard to avoid how dicey he's looked. I'd still jump in front of a bullet for him though (mainly because he can bring people back from the dead).

• Any of the talk about how Ozzie should escape all blame for this loss somehow is a bit annoying to me. If you're going to shit on the rest of the team for only playing a 50 minute game, then Oz has to take a little bit of heat for the 1st and 3rd goals. He still had a good game -- it just ended really badly and it's hard to sweep that under the rug.
  

• My favorite moment of the game was Leino getting punked in the corner, and Fil coming to his rescue and laying a thunderous body check. The new Filppula is simply awesome ... it's like he's transforming by the minute. If the Red Wings were high school students and this was the first week after summer vacation, Fil would be the pretty girl who everyone is looking at because her boobs doubled in size.

• Wings are in Denver tomorrow night at 9. I hope to catch most of it to provide a recap but if State can upset Iowa then all bets are off.
  

Game #8 -- Red Wings @ Coyotes

PHOENIX COYOTES 3 - 2 DETROIT RED WINGS (OT)
__________________________________________________________


It's hard to complain about a free blogging service. But after the Wings turned in that performance, and then I put the finishing touches on a surly post game recap only to be alerted with an error message that notifies me of some kind of outage, and I lose everything I just wrote ... oh man, that's the best. That's just tits.

Needless to say I'm not re-writing anything. G'night.

Game #11 -- Red Wings @ Oilers

EDMONTON OILERS 6 - 5 DETROIT RED WINGS (SO)


I'm calling "turtle" on this one. Too much to process in too short of a time.

Forget about how awful the game looked before it got to 5-1. Forget about the surprising names that got on the score sheet to bring us back. Forget about that damn pig flu.

Just know that Fil is done for the next two months and that blows an incomprehensible number of balls. Not just for the team, but for him; he's played too well for that to happen. That sucks. Sucks puckered asshole.

'09 can eat a veiny.

John Buccigross is making it harder to like him

I'm a fan of the guy. A lot of that stems from the fact that, as a person who isn't attached to non-sports TV programming, I end up watching a lot of sports, and that involves a lot of Sportscenter, and that involves some amount of John Buccigross on a weekly basis, and I like him almost by default because I know that he's more of a hockey guy than the person he's co-anchoring with. In a similar vein that's how I can tolerate the expert analysis of Barnaby and Melrose; since I don't have NHL network, I'm just happy to see hockey being talked about on my TV, even if it's making me 25% dumber. (That reminds me -- at the TTD Secret Santa exchange this Christmas, jot me down for the NHL network. Now I know that wouldn't be a real traditional present and it would be difficult to wrap, but just remember that whoever I draw is getting -- that's right -- two free tickets to the gun show. Sorry to blow the surprise but I got a little excited.)

So anyway, after drinking a bottle of bleach and crushing a bear can over his sack, Bucci was running out of extreme stuff to do and he wrote a little thing about Datsyuk and Zetterberg being past their prime. Oh yes this happened.


(ESPN)

"First of all, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberrg are no longer in their NHL prime. Datsyuk is 31 and Zetterberg is 29. Those are not "prime" ages to play a nine-month NHL season (training camp to the Cup finals).

We've noted in this space for years -- hockey is a young man's game. Maurice Richard was 23 when he scored 59 goals in 50 games during the 1944-45 season. Bobby Orr was 22 when he scored 120 points and flew through the air to win his first Stanley Cup in 1970. Wayne Gretzky was 21 when he went 92-120-212 in the 1981-82 regular season. Sidney Crosby was 21 this past June when he became the youngest NHL captain to raise the holy grail.

Younger players are more energetic, more durable, heal quicker and, most important, have heightened mental clarity because younger people think only of the present, which is the key to creativity and productivity. I'm not saying Datsyuk and Zetterberg are Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden and will never win another Stanley Cup. Just realize that players get injured more in their 30s and begin a downward arc in their production."

Good lord is that bat shit.

What is a "prime" to you? To me, it would be the time in an athlete's career that his mental and physical peak are at their highest and closest points. They've "put it all together". They are never going to be as good as they are during that time span.

Pavel Datsyuk didn't have his best season until this year, at the age of 30. He was nominated for an MVP while being the best defensive forward in hockey. When he's healthy and operating at the height of his powers, there's hardly a hole to speak of in his game, and in the opinion of one incredibly biased Wings fan he has no equal. He's the games premier stick-handler and a top flight passer; he can play center or wing and dominate everywhere on the ice, whether he has the puck or not; he can be physical, he's a workhorse and if he can get a gust of wind he can out-skate anybody in the league. And Buccigross wants to forget all of this after five injury-plagued games in October, and because Pav's not 22 years old. Reading this made me want to my dick in a car door.

Z's not exactly an old man either. 16 months ago he won the Conn Smythe trophy and played so well that a few people whispered that he might be the best player in the world. He's suffered his share of injuries, but age has little if anything to do with that, as he's seemingly always had something nagging him. Datsyuk has better pure talent but Hank has been the steady go-to guy when we need it the most, year after year. And what has he shown through the first two weeks that makes anyone think he's declining permanently? He's a PPG player through 7 games, and this is with a groin injury and having missed preseason time, and not to mention the fact that he's skated with #44 for the past few nights. He's only 29 years old and he's got a contract that lasts until he's in his mid 50's so I certainly hope he's not already on the downswing.

Perhaps Bucci doesn't take the mental aspect into it. Maybe he's only talking physically ... I mean, Ovechkin is never going to be as physically dominant as he is right now. Oh wait I forgot:

"Younger players ... most important, have heightened mental clarity because younger people think only of the present, which is the key to creativity and productivity."

What in the living fuck does this mean? Pav can't see the ice as well because he's 31? How about Marc Savard, or Joe Thornton, or the Sedins, or Shane Doan? Those guys aren't in their primes because they're 30 or older? Shit, Heatley's nearly a corpse at 28 and he's going to score 70 goals this year. You can look up literally dozens of guys who didn't start having their best years until their late 20's or even their early 30's. Bucci has broke ground on an entirely new dimension of absurd.

Hockey

(I'm trying to out-generic the blogosphere on that post title. Suck it, "Odds and Ends".)


Bruce MacLeod momentarily broke away from the Jedi mind control of his employer to write about the Red Wings. Today he threw up a bunch of stats on the Wings' start to the season. You could probably guess how this graphic would look before seeing it:

Obviously these numbers have to (and will) turn upside down in the coming weeks, but like many others have said, if the slow start to the season costs the Wings a valuable playoff seed, then games like Saturday night will look even worse. Yes, I'm talking about losing the Central to the Hawks, a notion that some Wings fans were unwilling to even contemplate before the season began. Oh shit -- that was me.

Losing the 5-on-5 battle is not something that we're accustomed to seeing. The Wings have finished among the top five teams with their even strength goals/goals against ratio every year this decade. In Babcock's four full years, they've finished 1st, 1st, 1st, and 2nd since 2005-06. That's a phenomenal level of consistency. Right now they look really average and the power play has saved their asses.
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One of my favorite new reads is The Scrappy Octopus. I hope that this is the type of content that will be shared for the duration of its existence:


I thought I would share something that was so funny, it made me spit out my pumpkin latte onto my desk, sent to me by Brian, courtesy of Deadspin. Enjoy.

Kyle Dennis, a math teacher and boys basketball coach in Boise, is in trouble for giving us one of the best police reports in recent memory:

Dennis "knowingly engaged in obscene conduct...by manipulating his penis with his hands while walking around a Costco store with an erection."

Despite that "knowingly," I might be willing to cut him a little slack here. Who among us can see the amazing deals on bulk pricing and not get at least semi-chubby?

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(Obligatory "it's still early" caveat) ..... But honestly. Look at this shit.


How long can the Avs stay this hot? Hopefully not too much longer because I don't want to regret "selling high" on Craig Anderson in my fantasy league. Enter Kent at Five Hole Fanatics:


The Avs are looking real good right now, but it isn't going to last. They have a terrible shot differential, a 935 SV% and a team SH% of about 14. Both percentages are unsustainable (although I think Anderson is the real deal) and once one or both fall back down to earth, the Avs will too. They're roster is really, really young to boot and will probably hit a wall half way through the season. Best in NW right now, perhaps, but my bet is they still finish last.


Sounds reasonable enough. What about Bruins?


Most writers in this corner of the web could have called the Bruins decline. not only did they lose a number of decent players this summer (Ward, Kessel, Yelle), much of their success last year was derived from out of this world percentages. The regression was inevitable, which is why I picked them to be a middling club in the EC this season.


Exactly what my gut feeling was before the season started -- before going against it and picking them to make the Finals. (Speaking of predictions, let's never mention the Minnesota Wild ever again.) And the Wings' next opponent?


I know. I can't believe it either. I've seen the Coyotes play a couple of times this year and they look...good. It's a foreign feeling. They are currently 5th in the league in terms of SA/G (26.7) and they have a positive shot differential. Tippett is the real deal and the club actually has some strength down the middle in Hanzal, Lombardi, Lang and Mueller. Doan is, of course, excellent while Michalek and Sauer are underrated, good value players. Bryzgalov and Labarbera are a good bet to prove better than average goaltending as well. I doubt they'll continue to lead their division much longer, but be prepared for them not to suck for the remainder of the year.
_________________________________________


And finally, I overlooked the fact that our last post was our 400th. (Cue music.) There are too many people that I have to thank for reaching this unbelievably irrelevant milestone.

First off, I'd like to thank my lord and savior Stephen Gregory Yzerman. Big thanks goes to whoever it was that invented the quesadilla maker -- and while I'm at it, colby jack cheese and Frank's Red Hot. Thanks to Daryl Blogger for taking a chance on me when guys like Michael Wordpress told me to fuck off earlier in my career. But the biggest thank-you needs to go to my homework, which inspires me daily to stay on the Internet for about 2 1/2 hours longer than I should and is the lifeforce behind this blog. Thanks to the both of you reading out there, and Yzerman bless.

Game #7 -- Red Wings vs. Avalanche

COLORADO AVALANCHE 4 - 3 DETROIT RED WINGS (SO)
________________________________________________________


I had the distinct privilege of missing this game, so this will be brief.

• Third time in seven games that the Wings have had a two goal lead and lost. Regardless of what time of the year it is, that's really bad. I don't care about "new" or "old" NHL -- two goal lead in the 3rd period at home should equal a win.

• My friend updating me on the game sent me a text when it was 2-0 saying "Goals from Bertuzzi and Abdelkader". It looked so odd that I saved it. Definitely one of those strange images you want to preserve, like if you were to see a UFO or Claude Lemieux burning alive.

• Bert was a 3 Stars selection for the second straight game. I'm working through a 47-step program that will allow me to say something positive about him, but I'm still a ways off. I'm having trouble getting past Step #1: "Stop watching hockey".
  

• Spotted at Av's Talk after the game:
  

• Five game road trip starts in Phoenix next week. The Coyotes beat the Bruins 4-1 tonight to improve to 5-2 ..... in three games against Pittsburgh, San Jose and Boston, they've allowed a total of one goal. Surprised? Shame on you. You forgot about this mother fucker right here:

Game #6 -- Red Wings vs. Kings

DETROIT RED WINGS 5 - 2 LOS ANGELES KINGS
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You've got to at least feel decent about the final two periods. Maybe not "great", and it certainly didn't make you reminisce about that one time you had a really long, oddly relaxing 4:00 AM pee (the one where you shoot up out of your sleep with a deep pain in your abdomen and barely make it but when you do it's so worth it that you end up staring blankly at the wall for about seven minutes longer than you intended), but it was definitely decent. It didn't start too hot, though.

• Kings scored the opening goal after an icing and with three Wing defenders on the ice. Oz juggled a rebound and Dustin Brown had an easy tap in. Big faceoff loss by Z.
  

• There was some carryover of choppy up-ice rushes from last game in the 1st period. Passes had yet to look typically Red Wingian and crisp like we're used to, but I don't believe that a lack of effort was the reason for this. They really just haven't found that groove yet, and you know they will eventually. Now if only players could stay healthy and there wasn't all of that line juggling they could actually gel and coheesh (it's the root of "cohesion", trust me).

• Patrick Eaves remarked during his 1st intermission interview that he thought the team finished the period strong and that they were playing well. Little did we know that he actually thought the question was about a 2003 Boston College game against UMass.
  

• Fortune turned in the 2nd period. Homer was vintage on the Wings first goal (Lidstrom's 999th point with a perfectly placed slapper) standing on top of the crease.
  

• Ozzie had some huge saves after Homer's goal, stopping a breakaway, a close one-timer and a couple others. Great game all around.
  

• Lidstrom got his 1000th point on Hank's first goal of the season. Terrific slap-pass and redirect.

• Maltby jumped into a play and got himself another goal. He's got 2 goals on 3 shots this year. He's a fucking plus 3 in 4 games played.
  

• Rafalski had a few of those giveaways that, if he were Jason Williams, you people would be vomitting in your sleep over. You know who you are.

• The Wings actually killed all five penalties tonight.
  

• Bertuzzi wasn't all that awful, except for when he botched a 2-on-1 by trying to snipe a five year old in the stands with a wayward shot.

• Wings out-hit the forecheck-y Kings 25-19.
  

• The official "We definitely didn't steal this from Nightmare On Helm Street" Top 3 Wings:

#3 ~ Val Filppula: Babcock's hard-on for Flip is rivaled only by Osrt's. He played a full two minutes more than any other Wing forward and took the most draws (12 out of 19 -- only Wing to finish a plus in that category).

#2 ~ Nick Lidstrom: Two big assists and his 1000th point.

#1 ~ Chris Osgood: 24 for 26 on saves. He had to make a number of key saves during the 2nd period when the action started to open up. He called his team out and then backed it up with a stellar game.

Game #5 -- Red Wings @ Sabres

BUFFALO SABRES 6 - 2 DETROIT RED WINGS
_________________________________________________________


That was one of the worst Red Wings efforts I've ever seen. Not everybody was guilty, but enough of them were to make this an awful game.

• Osgood played pretty well for giving up five. Hard to consistently stop pucks when the men in front of you are boycotting the slot and crease area. How many times did you see a Sabre in Ozzie's face? 70? Like every possession?

• Babcock's little line juggling ended at the start of the 3rd when he put the Pav/Hank/Homer line back together, and -- gasp -- they scored a goal together.
  

• Kronwall started the game well, laid a colossal hit, picked up an assist .... and then ended up a minus 2 thanks to a disastrous 2nd period. I can only describe his give-away on Thomas Vanek's second goal as maniacally retarded.

• I've seen few Wings games with more botched passes and breakouts as this one. Even the simple passes, like a matter of 6 or 7 feet, seemed oddly challenging.

• I've seen three out of five Wings games -- all losses. Total of 15 goals against in those three games. After a whole summer of trying to remain calm and talk up the "motivation" angle and everything else, I have yet to see THE Red Wings show up. It's a little bothersome. Still very early though .... (Count this as my bid for the "Gamewrecker" title.)

• Datsyuk could be the most talented player in the world, and tonight he looked absolutely high. With a sluggish 2-2 record and an obvious call to pick up the slack with Franzen out (and Hossa and Hudler and Samuelsson and Kopecky), I barely noticed him.

• I liked what I saw out of Filppula, Leino and Helm (who wasn't playing like a guy coming off a month-long injury stint. Not that he knows how to do that anyway). I just enjoy watching Fil and Leino play together. Rumor has it that they attribute much of their good chemsitry to countless hours of Pictionary.

• Jimmy Howard didn't let in nine goals like I was sure he would, so that's good I guess. (God I just want to hit the reset button on this fucking season.)
  

• Honest question: do you think Derek Meech is better than Chris Chelios right now?

• Another question: Am I crazy, or did I hear Darren Eliot say that Steve Yzerman was born in Detroit? Versus showed the Captain up in the press box, then showed a couple of his highlights, and that's about when I thought I heard it. Could be wrong, since I didn't see anyone else bring this up. But this would be hilarious if it actually happened. Please tell me I'm not crazy.

Howdy

Finally back after the long weekend. Nashville was nice. We were at a mall when I was inches away from buying a game-worn pair set Barry Trotz's underwear but decided against it. I instead went with the suspenders.

Now, I'm trying to do some catching up. Am I understanding this correctly: Bertuzzi played on the top line against Washington? And it wasn't a total disaster? This according to Babcock, at least.


He didn’t pick up any points in Saturday’s 3-2 victory over Washington, but his hustle and defensive play prompted coach Mike Babcock to say it was the best he’s seen Bertuzzi perform “in a number of years.” (Khan)


Fuck off. His hustle and defensive play? I don't believe this.

Also according to Khan, Helm may return to the lineup in Buffalo tonight. This would be good for obvious reasons, but also because I'm tired of hearing the word "AC joint".

Practice lines:


Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Bertuzzi (Maltby working in)
Leino-Filppula-Cleary
Holmstrom-Abdelkader-Williams
May-Draper-Eaves (Helm working in)

Lidstrom-Rafalski
Kronwall-Stuart
Meech-Ericsson
Lebda

Osgood (starting)
Howard

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We're back to the regularly lazy and inconsistent programming now, so a recap post is likely after the Sabres game perhaps maybe sort of probably.

Game #163

A couple of weeks ago I wondered aloud how the Tigers season would interfere with Red Wings blogging come October.


MINNESOTA TWINS 6 - 5 DETROIT TIGERS (12 IN)


I have my answer now: completely kill my desire to ever turn on a TV again. All I'm thinking right now is how I've seen the most heartbreaking Tigers and Wings games of my life in the last four months.

Well that's sort of a lie. I'm also thinking about runners at the corners with no outs. And Zach Miner's "I obviously shouldn't be pitching in a big game" face. And Brandon Inge's jersey flapping after he was hit with the bases loaded. And being three lousy outs from the first division title since I was downing breast milk smoothies. And a ground ball up the middle that I was sure was an AL Central-winning double play, but wasn't.

And oh, that fucking dome. May that piece of dog shit melt in the hottest region of Hell. I have this dream where that entire baggy bitch collapses in flames while Brett Favre and Nick Punto are tied to each foul pole. If somebody can somehow make this happen I swear to God I will spend life in prison in your place.

Speaking of Punto, I foolishly tweeted this last Thursday during what should have been the last Twins/Tigers series of the year (I can't believe I'm quoting myself from Twitter; or saying "tweeted") --


"Glad that's the last of Punto for about 6 months. He's the Max Talbot of the Minnesota Twins."


Fuck me, right? The last of Nick Punto? Of course not. This horror movie villain of a baseball team wouldn't die, because they never do, and the slowest most painful death of a season dragged on from Thursday afternoon to Tuesday night.

I will say, in spite of all of this, that it was a remarkable game. As much as you may read about the Tig's choking away first place (being the first team to ever blow a three game lead with four games to play makes it hard to shake the "choke" label since pro baseball has been around for like five thousand years), they battled back a number of times in this game and showed some heart. Maggs' homer in the 8th was unexpected and thrilling; I thought the game was over after the Twins went up 4-3 in the 7th. Raburn's double play made my pants damp and (sort of) made up for his blunder at the start of the inning. And the bench reaction to Don Kelly being safe at home in the 10th was a really awesome thing to see.

*****

For those only into hockey, sorry for the baseball ranting. My lifelong passion for the Wings only narrowly edges my Tigers interest, but it's over now.

The Detroit-less MLB playoffs actually coincides with a little break I'll be taking, as I'll be out of state from Thursday to Monday. I don't know what my Internet situation will be like, so if this is the last post until next week, I just pray that I won't be coming home to a 20,000-word volcanic eruption at A2Y after the Wings start 0-4.

We could use some Helm

Khan says that Darren Helm -- still banged up from being too fucking extreme in training camp -- probably won't be ready for the Joe Louis opener on Thursday.


Judging by his comments, it doesn't appear as if Helm will be ready by Thursday. He's still avoiding contact, for the most part, in drills.

“Shooting, handling the puck, sometimes I have to reach in an awkward position, getting bumped around still kind of hurts a little bit,'' Helm said. “I want to come back, be 100 percent and not worry about going into the corners or battling along the wall. Even in the drills right now I’m kind of thinking about it a little bit.''


Also, with Brett Lebda reviving his October Suckage tour for the second straight year, he will be benched in favor of the equally useless Derek Meech.


On defense, Derek Meech will replace Brett Lebda, who struggled the first two games, posting a minus-3 rating and getting benched during the third period of Saturday's 5-3 loss to the Blues.


Perhaps I'm being pessimistic here, but instead of Meech, I think the Wings should consider pairing Jonathan Ericsson with a banana peel.

Game #2 -- Red Wings @ Blues

ST. LOUIS BLUES 5 - 3 DETROIT RED WINGS


Jimmy Howard sucks. There's your recap.

*****


I've come to the conclusion that I like too many sports. Too emotionally invested in too many teams. Too much stress from some relatively inconsequential things. What a weird day.



CHICAGO WHITE SOX 5 - 1 DETROIT TIGERS


Baseball can be such a slow, agonizingly painful experience. As a Tigers fan I feel like I've been bleeding to death for the last week. I have a million things to say about this team and none of it makes sense, so I'll stop.



MICHIGAN STATE 26 - 20 MICHIGAN, REFS (OT)


I'm just going to enjoy this win and pretend that the first two games didn't happen. So happy (and surprised) with the outcome. After the inevitable Taint Forcier comeback, two decades of history prepared me for an MSU loss. But instead we got a humongous win.

*****

Probably just going to do something outdoors tomorrow and avoid TV. I'll be back next week as the Wings prepare for a must win in their third game of the season.

Game #1 -- Red Wings vs. Blues

ST. LOUIS BLUES 4 - 3 DETROIT RED WINGS


The good ol' NHL's back in town (or more precisely, way the fuck out of town), and for the second straight season a lackluster Opening Night results in a one goal loss. Lucky for us, Def Leppard didn't turn a trophy upside down after the game to put another 50 years of bad luck on us, so we only have 49 more cursed seasons to trudge through.

Brief game thoughts:

• Kris Draper turned about 9 years younger and used the assistance of a referee to help do the dirty work for the first goal of the year, put in by Jonathan Ericsson. It was a little mind-blowing. Big E then left the game later after hurting his ankle, but it shouldn't be too big of a deal. To not freak out about it, just remember that he's not Andrei Markov right now.

• Kirk Maltby scored a shorthander for the Wings second goal. It was really mind-blowing. He even roofed it like he knew what he was doing.

• The Wings lost out on some power play opportunities, scoring only once with Ville Leino's wrister in the 2nd period, which was more due to a rush than an actuall PP setup.

• Then the '08-09 regular season nonsense started happening, and the Blues came to life with three unanswered goals. Franzen took his second penalty of the game, which led to the Blues first goal in the comeback; then Ozzie went limp and gave up a gift rebound for the equalizer; Paul Kariya got his second of the game to make it 4-3, and the Wings couldn't respond in the third. It was all probably because they're old and lost 90 goals in the offseason.

• Ozzie had a sterling save percentage of 82%; Chris Mason on the other hand was stellar even though he gave up three, and had a few huge saves that prevented the Wings from taking a 3 or 4 goal lead.

• Bertuzzi was a minus-2 and raped at least four people. That 2nd line either just looked sluggish from not being in playing shape, or Ms. Baroque has the nail right on the head with Bert making his linemates like 60% less effective than they actually are.

• The Tigers are killing me. Literally fucking killing me. If they don't pull this thing out, it would cap off an epic year of Championship/late season failures of my favorite teams. To be perfectly honest, I'd take a Wings loss tomorrow coupled with State losing by 70 and Mark Dantonio being outed as the 20th hijacker if it meant the Twins would lose and the Tigers would win.
  

• New Triple Deke feature this season (OH SNAP, NEW FEATURE Y'ALL): Top 3 Wings of the Game:

#3 ~ Ville Leino: 1 goal, played well with Flip and should make for an exciting duo.

#2 ~ Kris Draper -- 1 very good assist in his knew role at Right Wing (still taking draws, went 5 of 8.)

#1 ~ Kirk Maltby -- Goal and an assist; also got caught by Versus cameras yelling "Fucking dive!" after BJ Crombeen felt his own urine trickle down his leg and collapsed.