I meant to do this earlier in the day, but I had a pretty full schedule. However, the Red Wings are playing today (!) and I just wanted to write a bit before the game to a) kill time and b) get all the freshest and latest news out there for anyone who thinks I took the Olympics off!

THE OLYMPICS

Very, very good from a Red Wings perspective. I wrote before the tournament about the things I wanted to see to consider it a successful tournament. Here's the checklist:

• NO INJURIES -- Accomplished 100%.
• The United States does not embarrass themselves after the recent progress they've made internationally. -- The United States should be proud of the progress they made on the world stage. Their performance is going to do the most good for the sport in this country since the 1980 games. Great team.
• Sergei Kolosov and Ole-Kristian Tollefsen prove themselves by not looking out of place against NHL talent. -- Kolosov looked pretty good, Belarus held their own against certain teams. Tollefsen, on the other hand, looked a little slow and wild positionally at times, and his personal "highlight" came on a dangerous hit on Lubos Bartecko. (Warning: the video is really bloody, though apparently Bartecko only suffered a concussion.)
• Pavel Datsyuk gets a boost by playing with Ovechkin/Semin/Kovalchuk and plays every game post-break like the five or so games he did before break. -- Datsyuk wasn't at all as productive offensively as he could have been. The Russians were a definite disappointment, losing to Slovakia and then falling apart against Canada. Datsyuk's redeeming point comes in that he was matched up against Sidney Crosby in the Canada game. In a 7-3 loss, Crosby was off the scoresheet and Datsyuk was a +1.
• Johan Franzen gets red hot and hits the ground running after break. -- One goal isn't productive, but Franzen was shooting like crazy. He also played competitive games against some of the best in the world, so there's definitely a good chance he can go on some kind of tear now that he's back.
• Rafalski and his weak immune system don't contract some strange disease to spread to his teammates from the Olympic village. -- So far so good. Not only did he not get violently ill, he played excellent defense, huge minutes, and was named the best defenseman of the tournament. On second thought, maybe he did contract some disease -- maybe this one would be good to spread to his teammates.
• Valtteri Filppula makes a significant impact for Finland. -- He had three goals, two of them empty net. He played a good amount of minutes and looked really good. He usually does that with Detroit though, and just doesn't score the points you think someone of his skill should.
• Canada dominates (until the gold medal game). -- Canada beat Germany and Norway pretty easily, but they lost to the United States and Switzerland took them to the shootout. Yzerman and Babcock got a lot of heat before that, but thankfully Evgeni Nabokov is terrible, so Canada had a pretty easy path to the gold medal game.
• Ryan Miller dominates, but at least one person suggests that maybe Jimmah should have been a USA backup instead of Tim Thomas or Jonathan Quick. -- Nothing on the latter, but Miller basically proved what I've been saying all season -- he's the best goalie in the world.
• Sidney Crosby has a terrible tournament. -- Well, although the media wouldn't dare say it today, Crosby wasn't great. As in, he didn't dominate. He scored two huge goals for Canada which is all anyone's talking about -- but I barely noticed him in any game I watched. You'd think one of Team Canada's leaders would just have more of an impact on a shift to shift basis.
• Sweden takes bronze. -- Team Sweden was a bit of a disappointment, third biggest disappointment behind Russia and Miikka Kiprusoff.
• Corey Perry passes off an easy play for a fancy one, Rafalski submarines him, steals the puck, streaks down the wing and puts a shot right under the bar to give the States a 6-5 overtime win in the gold medal game. -- Well, the gold medal game did go to overtime, and Perry certainly made enough mistakes to where this was possible, but it didn't happen. A lot of people weren't happy with Perry's play though, so at least we have that to parade around for four years.
• People blame Perry and not Yzerman/Babcock. -- Funny how it works. Barely beat Switzerland, beat the States, and struggle to score for 20 minutes against Germany and you're the stupidest people ever. But beat Russia (again, thanks to Nabokov first and foremost), Slovakia (how did Tomas Kopecky send them to the semifinals again?), and eek out an ugly win over the US (ugly based on the fact that this game was even, while Canada dominated the first) and all of a sudden you're geniuses. Oh, bless the little hearts of the Canadian media.

THE RESULT

Bitter. I didn't fully expect the United States to medal -- hopes weren't too high after 2006. If you told me they'd win silver before the Olympics, I'd be pretty happy. Of course, like Jack Johnson said after the game, you win for gold and bronze, but you lose for silver. So it doesn't taste too great. Overall, it was a sensational tournament. There was a time when hockey-haters would bring up that Games 1 and 2 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals (which were on Versus) was beat out in ratings by the final table in the World Series of Poker. Well, now you have this to fight back with: The game yesterday beat every World Series game since 2004 in the ratings, in addition to every NBA Finals and NCAA Final Four game since 1998. Does that mean that hockey is the second most popular sport in America now? Nope, but it's a giant -- and frankly, unexpected -- step in the right direction for the little sport that could.

But the question that everyone, and roughly 100 people on Twitter and Facebook said at the same time thinking it was an original thought is: Of all people, why did it have to be Crosby? I hate Crosby like every other pureblooded American (or even non-Canadian), but I don't hate that he won it. I hate that he's getting all the credit. My main problem with him scoring that goal is that the NHL marketed the Olympics for well over a year in that it was going to be a showdown between Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. Ovechkin was very noticeable for Russia, but Crosby was just merely "good" for Canada. Giving him credit for scoring such a large goal is one thing -- completely deserved, and well done. But that doesn't suddenly mean he had an amazing tournament.

To a lesser extent, since people aren't hailing him as a god now, I don't think Zach Parise had a great tournament for the Americans either. He scored one of the biggest goals in the history of the country, sure, and he had two (lucky) goals against Switzerland, but he wasn't the offensive leader that the US needed him to be, I barely noticed him in either game against Canada. So please, both countries, let's watch the games a little more closely from now on.

And that concludes that for the next four years; now the Wings:

HEALTH

I'm not going to throw a party because you never know what'll happen, what with Dan Cleary getting hit in practice this weekend, Tomas Holmstrom being partially made of glass, and Brian Rafalski having to play in two different cities on back-to-back days, there's a very distinct possibility that the Wings could ice their best possible lineup this time for the first time in over two years. I say two years for two reasons -- one, Andreas Lilja needs to be part of that lineup for it to count and two, last season, the Wings buried quality players like Darren Helm in the minors until playoff time. This is full strength, people. Unfortunately, that doesn't always lead to instant chemistry.

MEBDEECH

Two reasons I bring up the singular, shapeshifting entity that is the combination of both Derek Meech and Brett Lebda. For starters -- what the heck, guys? A month ago, Holmstrom is hobbled because of a shot from Lebda, and now this weekend Meech has mowed down Cleary. What have the Wings done to earn such terrible treatment from their teammates? More importantly, how can Lebda and Meech shoot that hard in practice but never look at all capable of scoring in a real NHL game?

The second reason I bring the shapeshifter up is because of the trade deadline. These two, along with maybe Jason Williams are the most likely Wings to get traded, though they don't have to do anything once Kirk Maltby is placed on LTIR. I don't think either will be moved, but the decision is coming shockingly fast -- the trade deadline is Wednesday. In past years, I've outlined targets based on what the rumor mill says for Detroit might be looking for, but this year they might not be looking for anything besides a draft pick. It's not a great idea to move either defenseman right now because we don't know how Lilja will hold up after getting back into the grind of a real schedule, plus Kronwall's health is a question and Ericsson's decision making is an even bigger question. Might need them down the road.

What I was thinking about doing instead is maybe a little bit of a live blog here on trade deadline day. I'd open it up around 11-12 when the first couple of trades leak in and keep it up until 4-5 when the trades stop. The deadline's at 3, but that's just when trades have to be into the NHL offices, every year there's still a good spike of moves until 3:30 at least, with a few stragglers coming close to 5. If anyone would be interested in this let me know, that way I can start trying now to figure out how to set up one of those "Cover-it-Live" chats so I can have it fully functional by Wednesday.

MALTBY

There was a little misquote from somewhere that said Maltby wouldn't be having surgery, but then an hour later he changed his mind, and he will have surgery on his shoulder. The last episode of The Obstructed View debated whether or not this is conspiracy or just good timing. I'd like to believe it's good timing, but I don't buy that for a second. Obviously I don't think you could find a real doctor to do surgery on a shoulder that's not hurting, but I 150% believe he could play through this if he wanted to, and this is surgery he would have otherwise had in the offseason (or maybe even when his playing days are over). I think Detroit's really pulling a fast one here -- there's no way the timing is just that good.

MAY

The big story leading into the break was that Detroit finally waived Brad May. He had ten days to decide whether or not to retire or to play in the AHL, where he's never played a game. He's made the decision to finish the year with the Griffins. Let's face it, the Griffins couldn't get any worse right now, so maybe May will give them the scoring punch that they... hah, I can't even say it.

AWESOME

A friend of mine from high school interviewed me for a local online publication from Novi, my non-collegiate home. He wrote a pretty neat article in my opinion, so if you're interested in the Q&A I did with him, be sure to check it out. I could get used to this free publicity thing, thanks Alex!

Half an hour until puck drop. I sure do hope Andreas Lilja lives up to the image of a competent #6 defenseman that I've been building him up as since he got hurt, otherwise I'm going to be very disappointed.

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