2010-2011 Player Profiles: Jimmy Howard...

Hey, kids, guess what? Hockey's almost here. That means it's time for me to get back into this whole blogging thing that I've neglected during the off-season. Since I lack the creativity to come up with a new gimmick, I decided to continue the Player Profiles series I did last year leading up to the season. I'll be taking a look at a different player (almost) every day between now and when hockey starts. By my count, there are 16 days until the Wings open the regular season. Get excited. Today's subject:

Jimmy Howard

2009-2010 Regular Season: 63 GP, 37-15-10, 3 SO, 2.26 GAA, 0.924 SV%

2010 Playoffs: 12 GP, 5-7, 1 SO, 2.75 GAA, 0.915 SV%

Season Highlight: His brilliant game against LA. His facewash of Sidney Crosby comes in a close second.

Season Lowlight: The first month of the season

Nobody was a bigger surprise last season than Jimmy Howard. I entered the year with very low expectations for him and figured he was a stop-gap solution until one of the Wings' younger goaltending prospects was ready to relieve Chris Osgood. Instead, Howard ended up taking over the starting job and playing brilliantly during the second half of the season. He should've won the Calder. I'll believe that for as long as I live.

This year, he'll face the dreaded sophomore slump. He's much older than your typical NHL sophomore, and he's had plenty of college and pro experience, so I'm optimistic that he'll be okay. That being said, goaltending is my biggest concern heading into this season. The Wings need him to play like he did down the stretch last season, not like he did at the beginning of the year. The team's stacked enough that they don't need hom to stand on his head every night, but he needs to make the stops that count.


What he needs to do to make me smile: Avoid the sophomore slump.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Part Three...

The Ugly

• There was more ugly this season than I care to remember. It was a rough year for the team and us fans.
• Brad May’s no-goal was the most ridiculously bad call I’d ever seen at the time. Of course, Jim Joyce had to go and one-up him a few months later (Can you tell I’m still bitter?), but this was disgraceful and bungled by the NHL. Objectively speaking, the May call was worse than the one in the perfect game because of its sheer ridiculousness even though in context it mattered less. This was a perfect example of officiating incompetence by the NHL and makes a compelling argument against the intent to blow nonsense that has been plaguing the league.
• That was the worst incident by far, but the officiating all throughout the playoffs was a joke. It wasn’t just the Wings-Sharks series. I don’t think there was a single series that wasn’t influenced by lousy calls and pathetic excuses for refereeing. Not that any of us should be surprised. This is the only measure of consistency the NHL has.
• The Wings didn’t suffer from an injury bug this season. It was a full-blown plague. There were several stretches when the team was fielding a roster that was half Griffins. The Wings didn’t lose the most man games of any team in the league, but I would argue that they lost more important man games than anyone else. They weren’t losing grinders; it was the stars going down. November, December, and January were absolutely brutal. A casual fan probably wouldn’t have even recognized the team they were fielding during that stretch. Ugh.
• Doanface and Crosby’s Golden Roar were two of the most disturbing images I’ve seen. *shudder*
• Of course neither one of them can hold a candle to the Shetuzzi. This is the stuff of nightmares. Behold it in all of its glory:
  
• NBC and Versus continued to provide astonishingly bad coverage. The announcers are pathetically bad, and at one point, NBC missed a Wings goal right off of a faceoff because they were showing nonsense. These are the NHL’s broadcast partners. I can’t stand when they pick up Wings games.
  

Thoughts? Additions?

Unofficial NHL Awards for 2009-2010...

Ah, yes, it’s that time of year again. It’s time for my mock NHL awards. This tradition started several years ago and was originally based off of the mock awards that were voted on in high school. Over the years, they’ve evolved quite a bit and fake trophies come and go every season. The real NHL awards show doesn't take place until tomorrow night, but it's never too early to get into the spirit.

The Dr. Rahmani Award (comes with a free lasik procedure) goes to Dennis LaRue. When I saw the Brad May no-goal on TV, I really thought I’d seen the most obnoxiously bad call ever. Of course, then Jim Joyce came along and had to one-up him right in front of my eyes, but since these are NHL fake awards, it goes to LaRue.

The Hatfield-McCoy Enemies Award goes to Wings fans and referees. No season in recent memory has been plagued by more obnoxiously bad calls. Call us tin foil hat wearers all you want, but there were a boatload of legitimate complaints this season. The bad officiating was rampant throughout the league, but plays like the May goal, the shootout winner against Dallas, and the better part of the San Jose series only served to reinforce the notion.

The Golden Pretzel Award for Epic Choking goes to the Boston Bruins. They had a 3-game series lead and a 3-goal lead in Game Seven and still managed to lose. Seriously?

The Class Couple Award goes to Gary Bettman and Sidney Crosby. Previous winners include Gary Bettman and Sidney Crosby. In fact, it should really be re-named after them, what with all of the discussion of renaming the real NHL awards to honor more modern players. It's fairly obvious why the commish and his Little Buddy won, so I won't go into depth. (Yes, I did just copy/paste this from last year’s awards post.)

The List Award (as in, "You're on my list.") is awarded to Shane Doan. I honestly never had an issue with Doan until the Wings faced Phoenix in the first round. He very quickly made his way onto my list where he shall remain forever.

The Chosen Ones Award goes to the Chicago Blackhawks. Their Cup victory was everything the NHL could’ve dreamed of. They got there thanks to young stars they obtained by tanking for a long time and using high draft picks to make no-brainer selections. They’re a huge media market, and their stars are young, North American, and marketable. If it couldn’t be Pittsburgh…

The first annual Eavesed Award goes to (shockingly) Patrick Eaves for his hilarious contribution to the H2H festivities. We’ll be laughing about that one for years to come. (Stick tap to Jenn for this one.)

The Mr. Invisible Award goes to Jason Williams (Who?). I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I follow hockey pretty closely. Despite the amount of time I spend obsessing over the Wings, I always managed to find a way to forget about Williams. I know I wasn’t alone. Even when he was getting ready to come back from injury, the reporters included his progress as an afterthought several days later. Poor Willy. (Stick tap to Amanda for this one.)

The Goalie in A Past Life Award goes to Brad Stuart. How many goal line saves did he make this season? It seemed like every couple of games, he was knocking a puck out of the crease after it had gotten by the goalie.

The Master Thespian Award goes to the entire San Jose Sharks lineup for managing to make even professional soccer players shake their heads in disgust at their flopping. (Stick tap to Rob for this one.)

The Face Only A Mother Could Love Award goes to Shane Doan. His goal celebration in the first round inspired the awesome #Doanface photoshops. This could just as easily have gone to Crosby's Olympic celebration, but since that one wasn't actually from the NHL, Doan won out.

The Team MVP Award goes to Pavel Datsyuk for accumulating the most Cookies and Cupcakes throughout the season. He finished in first place with 11 sets of baked goods. Jimmy Howard finished just behind him with 10 awards. Hank and Homer tied for third with six each. Everyone who spent significant time on the roster managed to snag the goodies at least once except for Abdelkader, Draper, Maltby, May, Williams, Ericsson, Kronwall, Lebda, Lilja, and Meech.

The Team Scapegoat Award (maybe not an award, actually…) goes to Todd Bertuzzi. He managed to rack up eleven Golden Facepalms throughout the season. Big Rig was a distant second with six of them. Rafalski came in third with 5 Facepalms. The only major players to not get a Facepalm at least once were Draper, Franzen, Maltby, and May.

Thoughts for other awards or nominees?

Red Wings 3, Penguins 1: Post Game Snipes...

• It feels like it’s been forever since I wrote one of these. I’m a little rusty.
• First off, congrats to all the folks with DirecTV who finally got to watch their first Versus broadcast of the season.
  
• The Wings looked good last night. After these last few weeks, I finally feel like I recognize those guys skating around in jerseys with the Winged Wheel on them.
• One of the Wings’ powerplays was so good that the Penguins looked like they were a peewee team trying to keep up with the grownups. Unfortunately, it didn’t end up with a puck in the net.
• Versus showed a shot of Ozzie on the bench apparently whispering sweet nothings into Paul Boyer’s ear. At one point, I thought he was going to plant a kiss on his cheek. I guess he’s having a good time, at least.
• The Eurotwins were out in full force last night. Please tell me that there’s a photoshop out there with them in a Captain Planet cartoon combining their powers.
• Hank called Bertuzzi “Ber-toot-sie” in an interview. I realize that it’s technically the real way to pronounce it, but it made me snicker.
• Back in September, if you had told me that seeing Jimmy Howard look like he was hurt was nearly going to give me a heart attack, I would’ve laughed at you. Luckily, he bounced right back and was more than ready to perform some late-game heroics.
• I’ve never once said that Crosby sucks or denied that he’s a talented player. My issue with him is his insistence on acting like a spoiled little brat. His attack on Zetterberg, who did nothing that I saw to provoke anything, was cheap and selfish. Instead of trying to put a puck in the net, he was focused on cross-checking Z from behind. That’s the kind of thing that would’ve had me yelling at the TV if it was coming from a Wing. Not so with Pittsburgh fans as they were quick to rush to his defense. His comments after the game were absurd and just as indicative of his self-centeredness. There really is something to be said for class, and Crosby is completely devoid of any semblance of it.
• Jimmy Howard solidified his place in Wings fans’ hearts when he jumped to Zetterberg’s defense. I kept rewinding the scrum at the end on my DVR and rewatching it, and I laughed every time.
• This is one of my new favorite quotes ever: “I saw Jimmy coming in with his glove and Crosby wasn’t there anymore.’’~Z
  

GP Answers:
1. How close to the final horn are the Wings going to wait to score a goal this time around?
They scored with less than a minute left in the first, but other than that, it was fairly undramatic. The real end-of-game drama came from Gary’s baby.

2. Will any Wings fans even make it to the opening faceoff before wanting to toss their TVs out of the window due to all of Versus’ inevitable Penguin-fawning? This would be an interesting thing for me to try since I live in the basement and I’d actually have to heave the TV up and out of the egress ditch.
I solved this problem by not watching the pre-game show.

3. What great new word or phrase are the Versus announcers going to delight us with tonight? In the past, we’ve been treated to ‘mastodonic,’ and more recently ‘Danglelicious.” I’m eagerly awaiting more of their oratorical brilliance.
Sadly, we weren’t treated to any delicious creativity.

4. Who is Matt Cooke going to try to kill tonight?
It turned out that Cooke wasn’t the one the Wings had to be looking over their shoulders for.

Cookies and Cupcakes for Henrik Zetterberg
There’s very little that you can do to convince me that Sidney Crosby doesn’t have nightmares about Zetterberg shadowing him anywhere and everywhere he goes.

Drew Miller the Golden Facepalm
He missed another glorious opportunity. I don't know what he was up to during the two games I missed, but the last little stretch seems to have been filled with numerous chances that should've resulted in goals for him if he had a little more finish.

What I Learned:
A whole week without hockey is horrendous.

Red Wings vs. Blackhawks GP...

1. A game against Chicago on NBC? What more could Wings fans ask for? How much time is Pierre going to spend talking about Sidney Crosby?
2. One of the best things about the Nashville game was the fact that the Wings’ stars were their best players. Can they continue to lead the boys?
3. What is Pavel Datsyuk going to do to blow our minds tomorrow?
4. We haven’t gotten to see Olympic Rafalski since the break ended. When is that version of the hometown boy going to show up?

This game starts at 11:30 am local time in Chicago. What an idiotic time to start a hockey game. Also, it’s going to feel good to be able to hate Patrick Kane again after those bizarre couple of weeks of Olympic hockey when we were rooting for him.

Red Wings vs. Avalanche GP...

Yesterday, midway through the USA-Canada game, I realized that the Wings were back in action tonight. I’d actually completely forgotten that, which is a testament to how much I enjoyed the Olympics. After spending the last two weeks planted in front of my TV for most of the day watching every second of Olympic coverage, I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with my life. I’d be 100% okay if they decided to have the Olympics every day. In order to fill the void left by the sudden lack of curling, ski jumping, aerials, and biathlon, I guess I’ll have to get back in the swing of blogging.

Before I return to the Wings, though, I have to say that the game yesterday was incredible. The two teams could not have made a better argument for NHL participation in the Olympics if they had brought flow charts and bar graphs. I was absolutely ecstatic when we tied the game in the final minute. Not even I, the ultimate homer, thought that Team USA would medal in these Olympics, so taking Canada to overtime in the gold medal game was incredible. Honestly, the thing that I’m most upset about is the fact that it had to be Crosby who scored the OT winner. He did next to nothing all tournament, but that’s not going to stop him from having statues erected in his honor all over Canada. I would’ve been more than okay if it had been Iginla, who I’ve always respected, or Nash who I have no issues with despite his status as a consistent Wing-destroyer. On the other hand, the shot of Yzerman and co. jumping up in the air after the goal made me feel a lot better. I’m glad Stevie isn’t going to have his Canadian citizenship revoked now.

1. Are the Wings going to come out of the Olympic break as dazed and confused as I am? Or can they continue playing like they did against Ottawa before the break? (That happened this century, right? It’s been a while.)
2. How will the Wings’ Olympians fare after their short break? Only Rafalski played yesterday so the rest of the team should be in pretty good shape. Honestly, Sweden and Russia getting knocked out early might’ve been the best thing to happen to the Wings in a long time.
3. Lilja’s slated to make his long-awaited return to NHL action tonight. It should be interesting, to say the least. How is that going to work out for him and the team? It sure would be a shame to have put Maltby out of action for the rest of the season to make room for the old, turnover-machine version of Lilja.
4. Can Rafalski bring his stellar Olympic play back to the Wings? If he plays like that down the stretch, things are going to be looking happier around here.

Red Wings 1, Penguins 2 (SO): Post Game Snipes...

• The shootout was disappointing for sure, but let’s not kid ourselves…the Wings were lucky to get a point today. The first 40 minutes of the game were far more disappointing than anything we saw in the skills competition.
• I’ve decided to stop trying to understand this team’s inability/unwillingness to show up for games. Instead of driving myself crazy trying to figure it out, I’m just going to accept it for what it is.
• I had a Qdoba burrito for brunch today. I didn’t realize the irony until I was halfway through eating it. Does Bylsma still do that before every game? It can’t be good for his waistline.
• Pierre McGuire kept saying that the game was being played with playoff intensity. He was either watching a different game or only referring to the Penguins.
• It was nice of the Wings to wake up in time for the third.
• Thank goodness Jimmy Howard brought his A-game today. Otherwise, the score could’ve been ugly. He got some help from the posts, crossbar, and some near-misses by the Penguins, but he’s the one and only reason the Wings skated away with a point today.
• Every time the third line takes a shift, I fall in love.
• Filppula missed a couple of glorious chances. It made me sad.
  
• Why would you send Jason Williams (Who?) out in the shootout before Zetterberg? I know Z’s not the greatest in shootouts, but Williams didn’t even appear to try. He shot it directly into MAF’s glove. He didn’t even have to move it to make the save. I would’ve sent Filppula out before him too, for that matter.
• Great job everyone over at the Winging it in Motown fundraiser. It was a lot of fun, even though it was weird to see Twitter so quiet during the game.
  

GP Answers:
1. Are the Wings going to have some semblance of a defense? The kind of game they played Friday night isn’t going to fly against the Penguins.
The turnovers weren’t as much of a problem today as they were on Friday. The Wings’ main issue was a complete and utter inability to play hockey for most of the game.

2. How long is it going to take for NBC’s broadcast to make Wings fans want to off themselves? Between missed goals and Crosby worship, this game is going to be filled with goodies for all of us.
I don’t think they even made it to the opening faceoff before we were all ready to mute our TVs. At least we didn’t miss any goals this time around.

3. I wrote about the powerplay sarcastically on Friday, and the Wings made me look silly by converting two of them, and scoring just three seconds after another one. Can they make that a trend so that powerplay success becomes the norm again instead of an exception?
No. They even had a powerplay chance to end overtime and couldn’t convert. That needs to get fixed. Soon.

4. The first line has been acting like a first line lately. You’d like to think that they would show up for a game like this. Will we see the brilliance from the Eurotwins that we’re accustomed to in big games?
Datsyuk and Zetterberg were the Wings’ best forwards all game, not that it took much to stand out today for most of the game.

5. The Wings got passed in the standings again. Petty desires for revenge or retribution for us fans don’t really matter anymore. The Wings need to win this one to jump back into the 8-spot. Can they do it?
Well, no. They’re now tied with Calgary point-wise, but are still in 9th place because they lose the tiebreaker.

6. I hate wondering if the Wings are going to show up before every single game. It’s been a valid question for all of this season, though. What kind of effort are we going to see from the whole team?
Hahahahaha. Don’t even get me started. It’s disgusting, it’s frustrating, it’s appalling, it’s disheartening, etc, etc, etc.

Cookies and Cupcakes for Jimmy Howard
I have this secret hope that Jimmy walked into the locker room after the game and beat every single one of his teammates with his goal stick while screaming incoherently. I’m sure that didn’t happen, but it has to be annoying to consistently be the only one showing up for games.

Darren Helm gets the Golden Facepalm
I love the guy, but you just can’t leave Sidney Crosby wide open like that. This really could’ve gone to a number of guys, though.

What I Learned:
The Office is NBC’s only redeeming quality.

New Rules for 2010...

Inspired by Mitch Albom’s column on Sunday (Yeah, I know, I know.), I decided to write some of my own rules for 2010 (pronounced twenty-ten, sunshines). Since we live in Little Gary’s universe, and I have absolutely zero power, none of these things will ever happen. A girl can dream though. Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments.

For the Red Wings:

• Chris Osgood has to age at least a little. He looks like he could be my kid brother. I’m only 23.
• Mike Babcock has to wear fedoras to every game. This is crucial.
• Ozzie’s calendar is only allowed to include the months of April, May, and June. They’ll just cycle through four times a year each.
• Nobody else in a Wings uniform is allowed to get hurt. Ever.
• The Wings have to release a new line of stylish tin foil hats for fans with fashion sense.
• Wings games are now state-wide holidays. No class or work can be scheduled during them.
• Darren Helm has to learn how to finish his chances.
• Pavel Datsyuk has to make an exercise video based off of his pre-game stretching routine. Move over, Richard Simmons.
  
• The 19th day of each month should also be a holiday on which everyone is required to wear Wings apparel.
• The Wings get a restraining order against Brad Watson and Dennis LaRue so we never have to see them again.
• Mickey Redmond must be unleashed on the telestrator at least once per period during each and every broadcast.
• Sorry, MacLean, the ‘stache has to go.
• Larry Murphy’s makeup artist is fired. Now.
• The Zetterberg fangirls have lost their privilege to vote for the player of the game.
• “Kronwalled” is hereby added to the dictionary.
• No more shutout losses. I won’t allow it.
• The Wings’ powerplay needs to figure out a way to score on a regular basis.
• Ville Leino has to race Darren Helm so that I can point and laugh.
  

For the NHL:

• All NHL broadcasts must include the word “fabulosity” at least once.
• Mike Milbury and Pierre McGuire are banned. There’s really no need for anyone to ever hear them speak again.
• Gary Bettman must be constantly followed by an entourage of fans who walk behind him and boo him. Everywhere he goes, they follow.
• Nobody gets to use the word “fronting” any more. It’s to be permanently deleted from everyone’s vocabulary.
• Ditto for “time and space.”
• Whining is now a 5 minute major. Boo hoo, he touched you with his stick. You’re a grown man who’s making more money to play a game than I’ll ever make in my life. Man up. This also applies to my little sister.
• No more ads with Sidney Crosby. Seriously. We don’t want to see his face.
• Dennis LaRue and Brad Watson will both win the lottery only to find out that the lotto agency “intended to blow” the whistle before their numbers were drawn. They don’t get a penny.
• Versus must learn to show appropriate replays. You know, things like penalties that might be important to the game.
• All sports bars are required to carry Versus. No excuses.
• NBC has to stop pretending that nobody has ever seen a hockey game before when it broadcasts games. Believe it or not, not all of us need to have the concept of a powerplay explained to us.
• Third jerseys are no longer permitted.
• Ditto for pink ones. These are a travesty.
• Nobody talks about Crosby’s dryer or the Lucky Loony ever again. Enough is enough.
• The league has to market at least one team in the West not located in Chicago. I’m sick of seeing all the hype directed at the Eastern Conference when statistics clearly show that the West is superior.
  

For everyone else:

• It's pronounced twenty-ten. Get with the program.
  
• All slow walkers (who are not elderly…we’ll give them a pass) will be banished to Siberia.
• Lolspeak must die a miserable, painful death. You look like a moron when you write like that. And I judge you.
• Anyone who leaves shopping carts in the middle of parking lots without returning them to the cart corral will have their driver's license revoked.
  
• Nobody over the age of 13 is allowed to have a fauxhawk. I’m looking at you, Bertuzzi.
• Stores are no longer allowed to claim something is on clearance if it’s only 30% off. 30% is not a clearance. It’s just a good sale. At half off, we’ll talk.
• If you don’t feel like driving the speed limit, you’re banned from the freeway. Take the side streets. I have places to be, and I’d like to get there in a timely manner.
• Twelve-year-olds don’t need fancy phones and unlimited text message plans.
• Using a kid leash is now considered child abuse.
  
• Waking up before 8 AM is prohibited.
• The minimum tip for adequate service is 15%. And that’s pretty stingy. 20% should be your baseline. Servers have bills to pay, and rely on tips for their living. Complementing them is nice, but before leaving a bad tip, stop and consider whether kind words from a stranger would help you make your car payment.
• All Crocs and Ugs must be burned.
• Ditto for anything Twilight related. In fact, the word “twilight” is also banned, except for when referring to dusk.

(UPDATE 9:55 PM 1/4/09) Two important ones that I forgot:

• Lady Gaga=gone. ASAP.
• If you walk down the middle of a parking lot aisle and block traffic, you can legally be run over by the cars trying to get through. You're fair game at that point.