Weekly Wrap-Up Volume Three...

Caption Mondays: Sara Neuie won this week again with her imaginary conversation about old man sweaters.

Dougie: Are you sure?
Hank: I'm telling you it works! How else do you think I got Emma?
Dougie: Huh, old man sweaters. I'll go shopping tomorrow. *smiles* I am so getting laid when I get back to Grand Rapids

Trivia Tuesdays: Andy actually waited over an hour to answer this week, giving other folks a chance to sneak in an answer before him. Nobody did, though, making him the three-time trivia champion. That makes the leaderboard:

Andy: 3
Everyone Else: 0

This week's question: The Wings hold the record for most penalty minutes in a single playoff game. How many minutes did they receive and how many penalties were they awarded?

The Answer: The Wings had a whopping 152 penalty minutes in a game against the Blues in 1991. St. Louis is in second place with 146 minutes of their own that day. Each team was awarded 33 penalties in what was apparently a rowdy game. Sadly, the Blues ended up winning 6-1.

Caption Mondays Volume 3...

This week's edition of Caption Mondays features fan favorite Henrik Zetterberg and fan least-favorite DUHG Janik.  Doug has since made his return to Grand Rapids, but I'm sure whatever wisdom Z imparted on him during this conversation has made him a better man.  So tell me, what's going on here?

Red Wings vs. Predators GP...

Red Wings: 5-2-1

Predators: 5-1-3

Hat Trick:
1. Ozzie's getting the start again. Here's hoping he looks better than he did on Thursday.
2. Nashville is inexplicably leading the division right now. Let's fix that.
3. Is the team going to show up on time for a change?

Red Wing Zen(ish):

Doug Janik

0-0-0, +/- -1, 5 PIM

Point and Laugh:

Sergei Kostitsyn

(Obviously not from his tenure in Tennessee [see what I did there?], but too good to pass up.)

1-0-1, +/- -2, 2 PIM

Red Wings 4, Coyotes 2: Post Game Snipes...

• The Wings looked awful in the first period. Across the board. I'd say I was surprised, but well, I wasn't.
• The thing that everyone is missing with Chris Osgood these days is the fact that he is a backup goalie. Backup goalies give up soft goals and make you cringe when they're in net. It's the way of the world. We're still looking at him as '08 Ozzie and he just isn't that goalie anymore. I think Wings fans will be a whole lot happier if we can realign our expectations to be more realistic for a backup netminder.
• Darren Helm had his best game of the season so far.
• I'm still regretting not smuggling in a bottle of Pepsi for Ozzie. I think it would've helped matters.
• At one point during the game, Pavel Datsyuk did something ridiculous and then passed the puck to Doug Janik who proceeded to blow the entire play. Amanda and I screamed, “JANNNNNNNNNNIK!” in perfect unison. I think we shook our fists at him, too. Or maybe that was just me.
• Pav is a ridiculous human being. He had a shift during the second where he absolutely victimized Pyatt and made him look like a peewee hockey player. That man just does things the puck that nobody else can. Nobody.
• The Commune found out that Gary Bettman was in the building toward the end of the second period. Hearing this news prompted us to exclaim (again in unison), “Well THAT explains it!”
• Mickey's interview with Bettman was much less argumentative than the last one they did. Hearing Bettman speak still gives me the shudders.
• Homer's penalty near the end of the game was killer.
• That was an ugly, ugly turnover by Kronner on the empty-netter, but booing him was uncalled for.
• The Wings could not hold the puck in the zone to save their lives tonight.
• I loved how hard Helm was working on that last shift. The team was down by two with less than a minute left in the game and he was still out there going strong.
• Kat and I rode the People Mover back to Greektown after the game. There were dancing homeless men on our train. One of them did the Moonwalk. Bros were singing “Beat It” for them to dance to. It was epic.

Hat Trick:
1. There's been a lot of talk lately about the third line not producing offensively. Will they redeem themselves tonight?
No, they still look disorganized and not quite on track.

2. The top line stole the show the last time the Wings played seemingly six years ago. Does that mean it's the “second” line's turn tonight? A glitter kittens goal celebration at the Joe with the Commune has the potential to be epic.
It was definitely the Pavel Datsyuk show tonight. Mule did score on the powerplay, though.

3. How many last-minute goals will the Wings allow? That's a sad trend that I've never been able to fully wrap my head around.
None, if you don't count the empty-netter. At least that's something. 

Hero: Pavel Datsyuk
I can't even tell you how many times we just laughed and looked at each other in disbelief up in the stand at the Joe after Datsyuk did something ridiculous. Amanda's mom texted her asking if anyone was going to show up to play the game with Pavel. We got the sense that after the first period, he just said, “Ah, screw it. We're going to lose anyway. Might as well have some fun,” and went out there and skated and stickhandled circles around the Coyotes. He put on a show last night, and it's too bad that the rest of the team didn't really look like they were interested in winning. Plus, he tallied his 600th career point.

Villain: Lauri Korpikosky
He scored the Coyotes' shorthanded goal, and then put sealed the victory with the empty-netter at the end.

Final Thought:
Isn't it sad that slow starts like that are predictable for the Wings?

Red Wings 4, Avalanche 5 (SO): Post Game Snipes...

• I missed almost half of the game again due to work. At least we get Versus (unlike FSD...ahem Dish Network) there so I got to glance at the game a little bit.
• I wasn't terribly impressed with what I saw. The Wings gave away a point tonight, and while I find that frustrating, there were several times last season when we would've been breathing a sigh of relief and saying, “thank god they at least picked up a loser point.”
• TAWD (the NHL's official pronunciation guide tells me that this is how his name should be pronounced and by golly I wouldn't want to offend Bertuzzi, so I'll probably never type Todd on this blog again) and the Mule seem to be clicking quite well. Franzen had a pair of pretty goals and seems to be well on his way to that breakout season we've been looking for from him. TAWD's actually been doing good work, meaning that someone in the organization finally found an adequate supply of kittens and glitter with which to stock the locker room.
• DUHG Janik got into a fight. He didn't do a very good job. The way it's been explained to me, you're supposed to hit your opponent in the face with your fists in those types of situations, and he really didn't manage to do that.
• Jimmy Howard looked surprisingly good in the shootout. It's a shame the Wings' shooters couldn't accomplish anything.
• Has anyone ever come up with an explanation for why Henrik Zetterberg is so bad at shootouts? I feel like he should be much, much better.
• Speaking of Z, I could've sworn the Versus announcer was calling him Zett-a-berg instead of Zett-er-berg. I don't know if I'm hearing things or if it was bothering other folks out there. I also thought I heard him describe Brad Stuart as a “flashing defenseman” so there's the possibility that I'm just losing my mind.
• I was thinking during the second intermission that the fourth line was the only one that hadn't scored a goal yet. Then Darren Helm and Patrick Eaves went and combined for a shorthanded goal in the third period. It was quite pretty.
• Pavel Datsyuk's goal was also rather nice.
• The best play I saw from the Wings came during overtime. I really thought they were going to put the puck in the net with the way they were buzzing. Alas, it wasn't meant to be and we were forced to endure the first Wings shootout of the season.
• My dad took that opportunity to insist that I should've aggressively sought out Mike Babcock when we were up at training camp to relay the message that he should have the Wings practice shootouts.  I'm sure that would've gone well.

Hat Trick (now containing a goal, an observation, and a question):
1. I want to see the powerplay make me smile.
It converted in the second period. You can't ask for much more than that. It would've been nice if the Wings had gotten more than one chance on it.

2. There's a good possibility that the combination of the Avs and Versus is going to make me stabby tonight.
Oh yes, stabbiness ensued. For some reason, Versus only comes in on the one TV that has the DVR hooked up to it. This means that the other three TVs I have access to in my house won't play it. However, the rest of the family was watching their recording of Glee instead of acting like civilized people who watch hockey and I was stuck watching a choppy feed on my laptop. None of this would've happened if we'd just been able to watch FSD.

3. The first game was headlined by the top line, and the second game by the second line. Who's going to lead the way tonight?
There was a pretty good mix tonight. There was a little bit of scoring from all over the forward lineup. It's interesting, though, that no defensemen have scored for the Wings yet.


I've Got My Eye on You:

Pavel Datsyuk: 1-0-1 +/- 0, 0 PIM
Pav's goal on the powerplay was quite nice.  He looked particularly good during overtime.  It's a pity he couldn't convert in the shootout.

Scott Hannan: 0-0-0, +/- 0, 0 PIM
The feed I was watching was too grainy and stilted to pick out much in the way of jersey names/numbers so I don't have anything to say about him. It was all I could do to keep track of the Wings out on the ice.

Hero: Johan Franzen
A two-goal night is usually enough to qualify for game hero status. I'm especially fond of the way he scored his second goal. (Yes, I copy/pasted that from the last recap. Why mess with perfection, right?)

Villain: Brandon Yip
You could pretty much see where the shootout was heading when none of the Wings' top guys could put the puck in the net. He sealed the deal by finally beating Jimmy Howard and thus reminding all of Hockeytown why we hate shootouts so much.

Final Thought:
I still hate the shootout.

Wings 0, Blue Jackets 1 (OT): Post Game Snipes...

• The penalty called on Filppula was a joke. Hooking? Seriously? At least they killed it off.
• I know I should be used to it by now, but Doug Janik is killing penalties for the Wings. I just…I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right.
• One of these days, Darren Helm is going to figure out how to bury one of those chances he gets, and I think we’re all going to pass out from sheer joy.
• It was nice to see May step up and do his job by fighting Boll in the first period. I initially wrote it off as the world’s worst fight, but May got in a couple of good swings. I’ll mark it down as a win for him. He must be listening to the podcast.
• Mason played like he did as a rookie. Thanks for saving it for the Wings.
• The Wings’ powerplay is pathetically dismal. It makes me sad.
• On the other hand the PK’s been out of its mind good. It’s like the Wings can only have one special teams unit going at a time. When one gets good, the other tanks. I guess the debate should be if we’re willing to trade some of the PK’s success to jump start the powerplay.
• Janik got into a fight. I don’t think that that’s really his thing.
• I kind of lost interest in this game somewhere around the first intermission. The Wings had a few sporadic chances, but it just had the feel of a game that was going nowhere.
• The Wings have now been shut out in three of their last four games. I get that they’re injured, but something needs to be done.
• Was it just me, or was this one of the best Versus telecasts you've seen? They actually did things like replay penalty calls and shots on goal from time to time.
  
• All things considered, I guess I’m glad that they managed to pick up a point out of this whole mess.
• I’m so ready for 2009 to be over that it’s not even funny. Bring on the New Year's Eve game.
  

GP Answers:
1. Filppula made an immediate impact in his return on Saturday. He didn’t score, but he definitely skated with the air of someone who knew what he was doing on the ice. Now that he’s had a game to work off the rust, how will he look tonight?
He looked good again, but, like the rest of the Wings, got nothing done.

2. Ritola was called up to replace Leino tonight. If that doesn’t send a message, I don’t know what will. Anyway, Ritola has to know that he’s getting an enormous opportunity here. He’s been chosen to replace a regular in the lineup, not called up out of necessity because of a lack of healthy bodies. How will he respond?
I didn’t notice him very much, but then again I barely noticed anyone on the Wings.

3. Datsyuk got put in the doghouse on our podcast this week for not stepping up and picking up the slack during Zetterberg’s absence. The bottom line is that he’s the one who needs to be leading the team right now and he’s not scoring. Will he return to his usual awe-inspiring form tonight?
It’s not so much that he’s playing badly. He just isn’t bringing the fabulosity (we spent some of the third period recalling some of our favorite Versus announcer moments) that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from him. And if ever there was a time that the Wings needed him, it’s now.

4. When is Nick Lidstrom going to score a goal again? It’s been the better part of a decade since he put one in the net, and I’m going to copy/paste this into every GP until he does.
No.

Cookies and Cupcakes for Jimmy Howard
Well, you know why. I can’t fault him for the OT goal. He deserved a win tonight. He got let down by the offense yet again.

Brad Stuart gets the Golden Facepalm
He let Modin walk around him on the OT goal. In a 1-0 game, that’s all it takes to land here.

What I learned:
Letting my brother have the remote during a hockey game is a terrible, terrible mistake.