Conference Quarterfinals, Game 3 -- Red Wings vs. Coyotes

PHOENIX COYOTES 4 - 2 DETROIT RED WINGS?


By now you've gone through the Losing Cycle of Rage. In which, you get all goosed up to watch the Wings; you are 105% certain that we're going to win; you've got a bowl of guacamole so awesome you want to inject it into your bloodstream; the Wings lay a gigantic T-Rex-sized egg; you are apoplectic; and then you want to replace the guacamole blood with half a kilo of heroin and die so they can't do this to you anymore. We've all been there. We're all on heroin.

And given your fragile state I don't want to alarm you, but I actually did some research for this post. A disturbing trend was found: the Wings hate playing during the day. Yesterday was the 12th afternoon game of the season, and their 10th loss. That means they're close to unstoppable at night, I think. (I did the bare minimum of the research thing.) What could be causing this continuous, weekend afternoon malaise? "Probably the Mexicans" may sound correct, but to be safe I dug a little deeper and uncovered some answers. It seems that the early start times really mess with the Wings' pregame routine.


JOHAN FRANZEN

Typical afternoon schedule:

• Shooting accuracy drill

• Bench press competition with Andreas Lilja

• Car lifting competition with Andreas Lilja

• Spelling bee with Derek Meech (formerly Andreas Lilja before February 2009)
  

It appears that without his triathlon training, Franzen is not adequately revved up for games like a caveman-looking meatbrain should be. I know he scored a goal, but his overall performance yesterday and particularly in Game 1 was downright odd in comparison to the last two postseasons. I was losing my shit on the first Phoenix goal as Franzen looked like me when I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom: groggy, legally blind and drenched in some sort of unidentifiable liquid. The "Mule"? Yeah. He has been more like .... eh ..... hrmm .... the Goat! BWAHAAA, you see there? With the animals?


NICK LIDSTROM

Typical afternoon schedule:

• Translate gameplan from English to Swenglish for Tomas Holmstrom
  

• Hand-deliver baked goods to local homeless shelter

• Collect hair from shower drain to knit wig for chemo patients

Nick just isn't Nick without doing at least 13 good deeds before puck drop. His head is clouded with worry and anguish. "Did Pastor Thompson get my belated birthday card?" .... "Did I smile at the towel boy on my way out of the locker room?" .... "Did I keep my streak alive of 'consecutive toilet paper rolls replaced after using the last of the previous roll'? Trick question -- I'm Nick Lidstrom and I have never pooped in my life."

Our flawless leader was a team-worst minus-3 yesterday. I felt dirty just typing that. It felt weird. It felt wrong. Then I looked it up again and stared at my computer as if to say, "Really? Minus-3?" And the computer nodded at me and said, "Word. It's fucked up, right? By the way, I'm getting really sick of you leaving me on the floor at night. It's cold, there's bugs, and I was like $1,500 so maybe you shouldn't treat me like a fucking pair of shoes. Suck my disc (tray) .. hahahahaha but no seriously I hate your guts and I'm sleeping with your girlfriend."


MIKE BABCOCK

Typical afternoon schedule:

• Meet with assistant coaches

• Stare at a wall for an hour, or until a hole appears, whichever comes first

• Fly to Philadelphia and beat Ville Leino to within an inch of his life

Obviously, it starts at the top, and we can't just throw the players under the bus for lollygaggin'. Coaches have to take heat too, even a guy who I absolutely never question like Mike Babc-

*knock at door*

Hello?

"I heard you say my name."

Uh, Babs? Wow, what an honor, thanks for stopping by. This is quite a pleasant surprise, I wish I still had some guacamole or something to offer-

"I'm going to ask you one time what you were sayin' about me."

I uh .... don't think .... there isn't really .... like, a need per se .... for uh .... me .... to .....

"I asked you a question."

Right .... and I heard you .... believe me, I did ..... and I uh ..... just want you to know uh ...... UHHHHH ....

"You have three seconds before I lodge one of your eyeballs in your anus."

OKAY I WASTALKINGABOUTHOWBADTHETEAMPLAYEDANDIT'SSORTOFYOURFAULT PLEASEDON'TKILLME

"Alright, that's fair. That's all I asked. Was that so hard? Yes, I take full accountability for what happened and we're gonna get 'er goin' for next game. Nothing we can do about Game 3 now, just gotta move on and take measures to not let that ever happen again. Now mop up this piss so I can leave without gettin' my shoes wet, if you don't mind."


PAVEL DATSYUK

Typical afternoon schedule:

• 30 minute blind folded stick handling exercise

• Discover riddle of what happens when you give a mouse a cookie
  

• Kill somebody and then slowly make a suspicious looking get-away.

The Datsyuk/Franzen/Homer line as a whole just wasn't alive for this game, and you saw that 30 seconds in when they were all on the ice for a Coyote goal. The most telling thing I can relate to you people is -- and this is one I'll remember for the rest of my life: Employee #44 played at least three minutes more than all of them. You can attribute that to line matchups or whatever, but my god. Something isn't right if .... you know .... the second to last sentence I typed. Had they come out on fire like you'd expect them to at home in a pivotal playoff game, then maybe the final numbers are different. But they didn't and Pav played the least amount of minutes that he's played in a non-blowout loss this year. That makes me sad in the pants.


JIMMY HOWARD

Typical afternoon schedule:

• Review game film

• Eat lunch
  

• Eat lunch six more times (stick tap to Mike Serven, who is single handedly making this post)

I don't even have a comment here. I just want to talk about how funny it is that a professional athlete -- and one who seems really athletic at that -- has a fucking muffin top. Dude. Jimmy. I'm not in the fittest of shapes myself, but come on man. Even I put down the donuts once in a while. Wait -- actually I don't. But I don't get 1/100000000000th the exercise you do and I'm still not drowning my hip bones in love-handle fat. If I sound like I'm poking fun here, that's because I am and I'm making it painfully obvious but first and foremost I'm simply amazed. Do whatever works, Jimmy. In fact, you might want to consider ditching the pads in favor of that rebound-consuming stomach.

I'm being an asshole. Go Wings.