For starters, apologies for the flaky posting. I'm sure some of you know I'm a college student, and as the college world, it's finals time. Exams are next week, but this week was my big week since I had five considerably large papers due. Hence, no time for game previews, and I skipped over the St. Louis game entirely. I'm sure I didn't upset any of you terribly, but I just wanted to let it be known that I wasn't just being lazy. I wish nothing else that I could have written a Wings/Blues recap on Wednesday instead of writing a 10 pager on alcohol abuse, a 6 pager comparing religious ideals in Robinson Crusoe to the that of the Narrative of Frederick Douglass, and an 800 word article for journalism. Trust me.

To recap, I didn't actually think Detroit was as bad against St. Louis as most people felt. I think they had the chances, and they played well enough to win. Ty Conklin was pretty sensational. 42 shots.. what else do you want? Conklin didn't have any particularly difficult highlight reel saves, but he was pretty in control of his rebounds.. unlike about half of his games with Detroit, where rebounds were at a premium for those who staked out in the slot. I'm still convinced that Conklin doesn't know how to move laterally, but I suppose I can't rip on him because he shut out Detroit.

But this weekend isn't so bad, so here's a nice little game recap for ya.

For starters: I'd like to fight Corey Perry. I just want to let that be known. Who can I get in contact with to arrange this? I'm a pretty famous blogger now (sarcasm), there must be some contact out there I could use. By no means is this some macho declaration here; I'm a pretty weak dude. I'm tall and scrawny. I don't think I have a high pain tolerance; I was honestly pretty convinced last night that I was dying of some rare stomach disease because I had a bad stomach ache. I wear glasses, thick-rimmed black ones to boot. Hardly the image of masculinity. But I'm fairly confident I could beat up Corey Perry. I'll fight him on ice too -- and my ice skating isn't nearly as proficient as my inline skating because I've played roller hockey all my life. And I've never fought. But Corey Perry is a bitch, and I'm confident I could tear him apart. Seriously. If there's anyone out there who wants to call my bluff; be my guest. Arrange it, and I'll fight him.

In other news, what a strange game. I only caught bits and pieces of the second, as I saw Invictus tonight and then went to Buffalo Wild Wings to catch part of the Wings game, before I caught the FSN replay at midnight. I don't think the Wings particularly deserved to win, but I'm certainly content to take points from that miserable Anaheim club. The Wings defense made more big saves than Jimmy Howard, and Detroit still competed offensively despite the fact that I'm pretty sure Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg missed every decent shot they had. So how did they win?

Todd Bertuzzi. I won't harp on it, trust me. He hasn't been anywhere close to where I want him to be, but today was a big step in the right direction. To clarify; I support him. I've gone after Michael at TPL more than a few times and most likely irritated him in doing so, for taking shots at Bert -- and I think what bothered me most was that he raised so many good points. I just don't think he's been as bad as most make him out to be, and tonight was finally some concrete proof of why. Before, I was defending him for "trying" for the big plays. Tonight, for the first time all season, he connected on those plays. He's tried that behind the net bank pass a hundred times and seen it cleared straight out of the zone about 50 times. And he's tried that close range elevation play a hundred times and has shot it right into the goalies' chest about 99 times. I didn't think he was too bad because not too many guys have the ability to try those plays like he does. But just when I was losing faith that even he didn't have those hands anymore, he finally pulled it off. I thought he had a strong game even before those goals -- and was even really good against St. Louis. But the Bertuzzi saga is by no means over. Hopefully this will lead to some more offense, but I don't expect we've got the early 2000s Canucks' Bertuzzi back.

The thing I liked most about the Bertuzzi goals was the celebration after. I've noticed that every time that Bert (infrequently) scores, the rest of the team seems to be really thrilled for him. Tonight, Bertuzzi looked like a rookie after scoring his goals. Trevor Thompson, apparently unconcerned for his own safety, phrased this as "looking like a pre-teen" in front of Bertuzzi in the post-game interview, but I knew what he meant. You had the double fist pump after the first goal, and then the classic "running" goal celebration on the OT winner. To me, it's really inspiring to see a usually pissed-off looking Bert acting like that on the ice. He's 35, and has hardly been living up to expectations. But he looked tonight like he was having a lot of fun out there, which will hopefully inspire him to start scoring with a little more regularity.

Other game notes, that no-goal call in the first was just exceptionally strange, to the point where I was pretty sure that they were going to call it a goal because that's how Detroit gets screwed over. To recap, despite having his stick held by Howard, Corey "I'm thuper tough" Perry, got the puck past Howard and Ericsson kept it out. Well, actually, Ericsson shot it into the net, and it hit Derek Meech's stick on the line and rocketed out of the net. The funny part was, Meech kept it out by falling on his face, which historically this season has not been working out well for him.

The ref signaled no goal, but for fun the Ducks celebrated a minute after the whistle blew anyway. But really, there was no goal and Anaheim had taken a penalty. I can't help but think though, that Anaheim may have known this and was celebrating for taking a penalty, because they seem content in taking stupid penalties all game and not changing their game plan. On a team like Detroit, that should kill them, but as much as I hate them, they're great at even strength. Plus, as Detroit's penalty kill is getting better (maybe because as guys get hurt, more and more grinders are coming in), their powerplay is getting worse.

So that was all strange. Those are the major thoughts, here are the minor ones:

-- Drew Miller, Patrick Eaves, and Darren Helm all have contracts up this summer, and I'm about ready for them to be locked up as the next Grind Line. I don't think they've played together, but they've all been exceptional in my eyes. I don't think Detroit would give long deals to Eaves/Miller, but if the season ended today (that would be nice, eh?) then I think they would have earned at least one more contract. Helm is looking like a Wing for life, whether it's this contract or next, but Eaves and Miller are each 25, and play limited yet very effective minutes. Would love to see either at 3/4 years for a low enough term -- neither contribute offensively now so they can't demand huge bucks, but both are young enough where they'll put up better numbers at 29.

-- Brad Stuart has been the team's best defenseman this year. All respect to Nick, who has been nearly perfect this year, but Stuart has been exceeding expectations and not enough people are talking about him. He's third on the team in saves behind Howard and Osgood.

-- I swear, ever since I went on my "Kenny and Mick don't understand wood sticks" rant, Datsyuk's has been snapping at every possible opportunity. I still stand by my statement, but Datsyuk needs to find a new stick. Zetterberg does too -- his doesn't break, but it's failing him where it shouldn't be. Detroit could have played this same way and won 6-2 with the chances these guys had.

-- Dan Keniels also made my mental notes tonight, as he called Scott Niedermayer "feisty." This is the way that most announcers call him dirty. I cannot stand Niedermayer. Pronger overshadowed him as dirtier in my mind, but I think that while both are overrated as defensemen, Pronger blows Niedermayer out of the water. Niedermayer sucks. Good skater, sure, but he is all that is wrong with considering the PIM total as an indication of toughness. Niedermayer racks up 70-90 PIM per year of mostly lazy hooking and tripping penalties. Daniels called him "feisty" twice tonight -- which usually means he's being cheap and getting away with it. Die young, please, Nieds.

-- To revist my offer to Corey Perry to throw some hands with me, as I was writing this, Kris from Snipe Snipe, Dangle Dangle provided some "excellent" Ducks broadcast footage of the Abdelkader/Perry fight, as FSN-D didn't ever show a good view of it. A few absolutely hilarious things about this fight if you care to revisit it. After a not-quite-intentional-but-not-unintentional elbow by Perry on Leino, Abdelkader rocked Pansy Perry with a solid open ice hit. Pretty Perry took exception. First, Punchless Perry threw Abdelkader (PS, great reading of the pronunciation guide, Anaheim color commentator), but Abdelkader actually landed more punches, both in number and quality. Hardly the ass-kicking that Perry deserves, but still a definite win. Then the Anaheim guys talk about how tough Perry is for a while, and deal this gem of a line: "Easier for the Red Wing player, hello, he's got that visor that comes well below his nose."

WHAT?!? How does that guy keep his job? While it's not a Niklas "why do you even wear one if all you're protecting is your forehead?" Kronwall-style visor, Abdelkader's visor does not come down past his nose, and in fact, it may be the same style that Perry himself wears. SECONDLY, Corey Perry is possible the most famous player in his league for not dropping his visor while fighting. Take Detroit for example -- a team that you may argue, does not fight often. Well, Perry has fought two different Wings: Dallas Drake and Jonathan Ericsson. In both of those fights Perry makes an effort to keep his visor on to protect that unfortunate-looking moneymaker of his. He does the same thing in about 75% of his fights on YouTube, if you'd like more proof. So yeah, Anaheim color man. Get a clue, and find a new career path, hack.

Well everyone, take care. No game preview tomorrow, most likely, as my Grand Valley will be on ESPN2 (that means you should watch) in the D-2 National Championship game against good old Northwest Missouri State University (NWMOSU, just rolls right off the tongue), who have lost five straight years in the National Championship game. It's likely head coach Chuck Martin's last game at GVSU before he joins ex-GVSU coach Brian Kelly at Notre Dame as the defensive coordinator, so I'd like one more game of success before I decide to hiss and boo Martin and Kelly for the rest of their lives and wish them nothing but failure at Fighting Irish U.

And Corey, baby, I'm waiting.

Comments (12)

Osrt said:

	... Good writeup. I'd love to see Perry's visor crack because of a punch. Get on that
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December 12, 2009
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Michael Petrella said:

... Are you kidding me, man?! I love our back-and-forths. I'm Italian - if I'm not arguing about something ridiculous, check my pulse. I've gotten a shit-ton of emails, text messages, Tweets, you name it. And I love it. Proves everyone's paying attention to my nonsense. I'm not ready to concede to the Protuzzi Camp, but love the ribbing I'm receiving this morning. How you feel about Perry is how I feel about Bertuzzi. My point the whole time has been this: play me with Henrik Zetterberg and/or Pavel Datsyuk and/or Dan Cleary and/or Tomas Holmstrom, and I PROMISE I'll have more than five goals in 30 games. It's not even a conversation. And you don't have to pay me a mil-five. I'll do it for league minimum. I wasn't a big time goal scorer in college (hence my job in television), but even I could have netted some of these retarded flubs he's had.

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December 12, 2009 | url
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junkyarddog said:

... I am Disappointed in the comments about Fighting. There is NO place for Fighting in the Game of hockey and never has been. This is why the game is on the decline. The NHL should ban Fighting from the game. The wings would be a better team with out GOONS like Brad May and in the Past that Probert guy. The game needs more skilled players like Helm and Lidstrom. If you want to fight join the Armed Forces.

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December 12, 2009
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Coffey said:

	... Hey junkdog, you Americans keep trying to change our game. Enough already..fighting is part of our game and always will be! Kyle, I followed Perry at Peterborough and London. He is tougher than he looks. He won't challenge a heavyweight, but he can hold his own against a non-fighter like Abdelkader. Corey is a 6'3' 210 pound agitator...like a Sean Avery or a Jesse Jackson.
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December 12, 2009
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Rob R said:

	... A bit off topic, but how was Invictus? I want to see that movie.
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December 12, 2009 | url
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KyleKujawa said:

... No worries Mike, I know you can take it. I just wanted to reinforce my point without making it sound like I was rubbing it in. Not that there is anything to rub in, because one 2-goal game out of 31 isn't quite what I expected. But it was good example of the type of game I think he's capable of and needed to make a note of it. junkyard, I disagree. How many people at the rink do you see sitting down when there's a fight breaking out? People love it. What I think the problem with fighting now is the goon. As far as goons go, I don't mind Brad May (I preferred Downey) because they can fire up the crowd and fight. But star players don't drop the gloves like they used to. Coaches have it instilled in most players that they're too important to fight. I think the fights when two guys are just angry with each other are still exciting, but it gets stale to watch Team A's goon fighting Team B's goon every time they play, no hatred involved. Coffey, I go to a ton of Plymouth games, so I was familiar with Perry in juniors too.. Didn't care for him there either. I have a problem with how he picks on smaller players (Rafalski in the playoffs ring a bell? he tried to claw his eyes out). I've also seen him fight a handful of times (including juniors) where he's made an effort to keep his helmet on during a fight, and I've seen him refuse to take it off when another player has. What gives? Then you've got purists like Cherry who call him a tough player.. Then complain about whatever European player most recently hasn't taken his helmet off, dropping words like "cowardly." Why not Perry?

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December 12, 2009
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KyleKujawa said:

	... Rob -- I liked Invictus a lot, definitely worth the hype. Morgan Freeman is great in it, and I'm a big fan of Clint Eastwood. Definitely one of his best works.
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December 12, 2009
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Keith B said:

... Since I've been backing Bertuzzi all year it's nice to see him score. He must lead this teams in scoring chances. I'd bet he's had more scoring chances then Z and Datsyuk combined. I never liked what he did to Moore so I didn't like the signing but saying he doesn't have talent is insane. Let's give him half a season to get used to his line mates. I bet he ends up with 25 goals. Junkyard, if you don't like fighting you don't like hockey. The only way to keep the Perry/Avery type players in line is to pound them once in a while. I don't like the dirty slashing and hits from behind but generally fights are pretty clean. 75% of fights occur when both players agree to fight. After both guys get their hits in and wear out they stop. Often the two players respect each other. Just to prove that fighting helps hockey think back to the last great rivalry Detroit had. Think about what game comes to mind first. If you've been a Wing fan longer than 5 years then the last great rivalry was with the Avalanche. The two games I remember best are the all out brawl night, where McCarty punished Lemeiux, Shanny flew through the air to protect McCarty's back from a douche of a goalie, and then Vernon and that goalie (who will go unnamed) fought, and Vernon cut him up. The second best game was the Wings 7-0 knock out of the Avalanche in game 7 of the Western Conference Finals.

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December 13, 2009
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Drake_Marcus said:

... "Ericsson shot it into the net"? *eye roll* I know you like harping on him (I picked that up in the two entries I've read on your blog), but that's retarded. Ericsson swept it out, in the direction of the goal line and it deflected along Meech's stick, off his body and out under him. It's funny that the play by play guys sat there praising Ericsson's play in that sequence while they showed the various camera views of the play, but you found a way to frame it in a negative way. Ericsson saves a goal and you make it seem like he almost caused one but for dumb luck. Get over your bias man, Ericsson's playing great hockey right now. Yeah he makes rookie mistakes but that comes with the territory. Do you even remember how horrifyingly bad Kronwall's defensive play was at E's age?

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December 13, 2009 | url
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KyleKujawa said:

... Yikes, that comment is completely wrong. Why so harsh? You're certainly allowed to disagree, but those are some strong assertions for someone who's admitted they've read two posts. For starters, I don't hate Ericsson at ALL. In fact, before he officially graduated he was the prospect I was, by far, the most excited for. There's no denying he was off to a rough start this season. He's really stepped up in the absence of Kronwall in my eyes. I haven't seen him screw up recently the way he was in the beginning of the year. I think he's well on his way to becoming a solid top four defenseman in this league and I still hold out hope that he cap tap into his offensive potential and become a top pairing guy down the road. Secondly, it was just an observation and not a slight to him. In the split second that Ericsson had to react, he did all that he could. I'd say most defensemen would have had played that the exact same way. He saw the puck loose, and swung at it. In my eyes, he sent the puck right at the post. As the post is round, that means it would have either bounced into the net, straight back across the line, or out into the slot. Fractions of an inches are all that separated that puck from doing any of those things. The puck came OUT because it hit Meech's stick. If Meech wasn't there it could have easily gone in, but I still would have given him props for trying. It was a great play by Ericsson, but he got a little help from Meech. If anything, you should have taken that as a slight on Meech, who I will tell you I'm not a huge fan of. That whole "falling on his face" part I felt was an indicator of my intention there, I guess I failed on making that completely obvious. That puck was definitely in if Ericsson didn't stop it, don't get me wrong. Meech certainly wasn't in any position to save it if Ericsson missed it. But don't act like that puck wasn't heading RIGHT for the post -- anything could have happened. I'm sorry if that's "negative" to you but that's just how I saw it. I'm not exactly sure where else I was harping on Ericsson, because I don't remember having a big issue with his play in the past two/three weeks. He was great against Anaheim and he was great tonight. I don't particularly like "picking" on certain players because it gets tedious (I was all over Sammy for about two years, and I acknowledge that I rarely gave him credit for the stuff he did do right), but the way this team is playing frustrates me greatly. I've tried to be fair to everyone, just because I like them doesn't mean I'm not calling them out. See Datsyuk on that one.. One of my favorites of all time, but I've been begging to see him get it together for a few weeks now. Anyway, thanks for the comment, maybe if you would have read a third post you'd see that I'm a Big Rig fan .

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December 13, 2009
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waltdetroit said:

	... Fighting has a place in hockey. In the past teams did their own policing as 1 ref could not see everything. All of the big stars - Howe, Lindsey, etc - could check, skate, score, & fight. Would the rivalry with the Av's have been as intense w/o Claude Vader? Bert spins & shoots - scores. Next thing he will be asked onto "Skating with the Stars". Double Double Kudos to Bert
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December 13, 2009
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junkyarddog said:

	... I still think fighting should be banned. If you turn down a fight and score a goal instead the player wanting to fight would be out of the nhl soon. I have not seen a point for fighting. Also, If you do your research you will find out the game of hockey started in Russia in the 1800's.
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December 13, 2009
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