Shut up. It's hard to make an 'S' in Paint.

The first Google result on the name "Dennis LaRue" reveals all you need to know: A post from a message board citing LaRue as the "Worst Ref in Hockey." His family must be so proud of him. And actually, if you spell his name "Denis LaRue," as I mistakenly did the first time -- you get another gem: an Islanders' blog, posing the question "Who is Denis Larue having dinner with in Buffalo?" Denis LaRue, Dennis LaRue? I wonder if that's the same guy.

Despite this, LaRue is still somehow employed. Other items on his resume include being one of the two referees on the ice in the Stanley Cup Finals when Pittsburgh had six players in the attacking zone for 20+ seconds, and according to his first two Google hits, blowing a video review call (hey, there's a trend here) in an Islanders/Sabres match and missing a cheap shot on Saku Koivu that put him out for extended time.

So last night, LaRue, a longtime fan of the Red Wings, puts on his game face and decides to enrage the hockey population by disallowing a clear goal. Observe:

You might think something like this would make a guy like me angry. Nope. This is hilarious. This kind of thing always happens to Detroit, and then Detroit fans are consistently called whiners. Usually because we've won Cups in the past. As if everyone would sit back and say "yeah, sure, that's cool that you just disallowed legitimately earned points. we're not upset, because we've won before -- let someone else win this year." Maybe if Detroit didn't win so many Cups and fans of these other teams had ever seen success, they would know what we know: there's no such thing as too many Cups.

I was livid after that call in the Anaheim series where Hossa tied it up and thuper-ref Brad Watson lost sight of the puck. That nearly cost Detroit the series. The consequences of this game are far, far less than that -- and Detroit really didn't play well enough to win in the first place. But this call was far worse than that one. You can't even begin to justify it.

So, I laugh. I laugh because I know, without fail, there will be two or three more Wings' games where the story is not the play on the ice, but the men watching the play. Detroit gets royally screwed over more than any team in the league. Am I whining? No -- clearly, it hasn't hurt the team's success. But it's the truth. I'd say that on average, I watch hockey about five nights a week. Every Wings game, for sure. Then with NHL GameCenter, even if I'm just at home doing homework, I'll have a game on in the background. There are other days where I'll be able to watch the majority of two or three games. Plus, I keep an ear open to news sites. Other teams get screwed over, pretty regularly. But no team has credentials like this, in just the past two years:

• First team to be scored against after a puck hit the netting and was not whistled down by referees (San Jose, 2007/08).
• First team to have a goal disallowed because the ref couldn't distinguish from the puck and the black of Anaheim's hockey pants (Anaheim, 2008/09).
• First team in the Stanley Cup Finals (this probably holds up as first team ever as well, because I've never seen anything like it) to play 6-on-5 (with no extra attacker) for more than 20 seconds. (Pittsburgh, 2008/09)
  
• Only team to have Tomas Holmstrom, continuous league leader of disallowed goals. I'd say more than half are rightfully disallowed, but that's still an F. (once about every 15 games)
  
• This. (yesterday)
  

Add to that, the "NHL" (aka Gary the Magnificent) decides on a whim to schedule a super-Finals series, which starts just days after Detroit wins a five-game series over Chicago. Babcock's exact quote was something like, "usually when you win a short series you get more rest." Sidney Crosby is banged up, but he can go for Game 1. Datsyuk is banged up, and needs a few days of rest (about the same amount he would have had, were the SCF not moved up) until he can play. Tell me, I dare you, that if it were the other way around and Crosby, the most marketed (notice I did not say marketable) player in the league, looked like he might miss a few games, would the series have started so quickly? You'd be correct in pointing out that Detroit actually won those first two back-to-back games. I'm just throwing that out there.

Is there a conspiracy?

No.

But the NHL does a great job at angering a group of fans that are unpleasant to deal with in that state of mind. Always at the center of controversy. If we could just hear, just one time, on a call like this, or a 20-second 6-on-5, the NHL say what everyone else knows: that they're human, and they make mistakes instead of these long-winded bullshit hinting-that-it's-the-wrong-call-but-supporting-league-employees "statements," then a lot of people would be a lot less stressed out.

For this reason, I laugh. Continued excellence from the little league that could. I was in class all day, but I wanted to post the best stuff I found in my RSS feeds this morning regarding the call.

The tweet of the night goes to Kris from Snipe Snipe, Dangle Dangle: "I certainly don't think this is an anti-Wing conspiracy. There's no way the NHL would be competent to pull that off."

A bevy of Wings' blogs have posted their thoughts on the issue, and, amid anger-fueled rants, have posted a few gems of quotes. Here are some:

Below the Crossbar finds all the right words that made me smile and inspired the movie review-esque title. Just picture these words in a movie trailer, spoken by that excitable generic movie guy voice: i.e. "Peter Travers calls it, 'Asinine! Absurd! Grossly Incompetent! Negligient! Mike Babcock calls it, "the dumbest thing he's ever seen!" Fabricated lies and fun for the whole family!" That type of thing. All words used by Ben in his recap. Great writing.

Mike from The Production Line and Drew from Nightmare on Helm Street each tap into the psyche (and accent) of LaRue and bring out their interpretations of how a conversation that dumb would have sounded. Chris from NOHS apparently had to edit his piece after he posted it to make it a little more PG-13. George at Red Wings Snapshots did not hold back in the typically well-versed and level-headed fashion we're used to, and uttered a word I don't think I've ever seen him write before: retarded. This is the absolutely perfect word to use for this situation. Dennis LaRue is retarded.

Chris from Motown Wings sums it up perfectly: "Yet again, the Red Wings get screwed by an asinine rule that basically lets NHL officials justify their decisions based on whether or not said official feels like he might blow the whistle in a certain situation." Asinine is a word thrown out a lot regarding the NHL lately. I like it.

Tyler from The Triple Deke hit the nail on the head with his piece, ending with his prediction on what (if anything) the NHL would do about this:

"I can't wait to hear what the league says tomorrow. It will either be nothing, which would be too embarrassing to comprehend; or it will be a defense of something that has absolutely zero defense to begin with."

Sure enough, the NHL gave one of those "oops,-but-he-tried-didn't-he?" statements, courtesy of Mike Murphy. This is my favorite part:

"In all cases we want to get the right call. In this case it appears we didn't"

Statements like that are why my plan to be a Public Relations major barely lasted through one class. Don't think this wording is not by design. "It appears" gives him room to suggest that the call was wrong, and hope to appease any fans. At the same time, he doesn't have to place any blame of consequences on LaRue. The perfectly worded, completely neutral and utterly meaningless, "apology." Classic.

Another solid line:

"There is a little bit of a gray area there between when he intends and when the whistle sounds."

The passive way of saying: this rule is completely effed up and there's nothing we can do do about it, or better yet, plan on doing anything about it. Great use of language, truly.

I don't know what it is. I'm not ragging on these bloggers either -- I have no idea why I'm not as incensed as the rest. The NHL has just broken my spirit or something. All I can do is sit back and chuckle.

The thing that made me smile the most was the shot that Greg from Puck Daddy took at Wings fans, targeting the vast majority of Wings fans who use the internets, as most on the 'nets also visit A2Y:

"Beyond Detroit losing a goal, the worst thing about this situation is that it'll provide further fodder for the tin foil hat society among Wings fans, who are convinced that Gary Bettman and the NHL and the Illuminati and the Stonecutters are all conspiring in some secret cabal to undermine their franchise. Because what business would want one of its most popular, ratings-driving, star-studded franchises to, you know, succeed?"

Naturally, the Chief wasn't a huge fan of this post, and he let him know it. Personally, I doubt Greg has time to read A2Y every day. If he did, he'd know the conspiracy talk is done in jest, and the Wings have no more tin foil hat freaks than any other team in the league. But also, I think this quote reveals something. Not that Greg doesn't like the Red Wings -- which is what some suggest. But that he doesn't like Red Wings' fans. That's fine, I dig that. I know he doesn't need to be objective. I dig that when he saw that goal, the first thing he probably thought was "Oh Christ, I'm going to be hearing about this for a month." Hope he does.

There's your summary up to now. LaRue-gate is in full effect, and I hope everyone else had as great a time going through it all as I did.

So, thanks Mr. LaRue. I hope your continued excellence in the field of looking at things and making decisions about them brings you all the happiness in the world. You deserve it, champ.

Just a few quick thoughts on the game while the Lions are incompetent on the screen in front of me.

When the Wings were struggling, Zetterberg and Datsyuk were not Detroit's best players. After a few games, Zetterberg turned on the gas and he hasn't really slowed down. Datsyuk has been spotty, but more consistent of late. Both have been the best two players on the ice in the past two games. And when you've got two of the best in the league every night, it doesn't really matter how many 2nd line players you've lost in the past five months.

Since he's had three starts in a row, I think Jimmy Howard has shown more of his true colors. He probably won't ever be a starter, but he's reliable. He was sensational against Vancouver. I swear that half the shots he saw were deflections, and I was pleased to see that even the biggest Howard haters didn't find some way to fault him on the off-the-skate deflection goal. A little shakier last night -- the Lupul goal was very weak and I don't think it hit a skate like Mickey Redmond said it did.

Other than that, he got beat on a huge Ericsson mistake, a cross-ice pass, and a Getzlaf blast. I think people seem to think he's at fault for the Getzlaf goal because it went under his arm, but there's no way that's true. It's five-on-three and that's one of the best shooters in the league just teeing off on the puck from the top of the circle. Whether or not that one went in, there's no way Getzlaf isn't going to score if he's given enough room to take that shot a few times.

Drew Miller looks pretty good out there. He's a much better two-way player than I gave him credit for. He's making all kinds of smart plays in every zone, actually had a few decent scoring chances in his time too. I'm interested to see if he'll keep it up, but I think he's a better fit on the 4th line than May and Maltby. Abdelkader has too much offensive upside to be stuck between those two, Miller is great on the cycle and has good hands, I wouldn't be shocked to see that line get a goal soon.

Ericsson got tremendously unlucky that his pass hit Getzlaf's stick, but still, I'm not sure where he wanted to go with that puck. The boards are the better option there, I think. He's starting to improve, but has to minimize those types of mistakes. He's been throwing his weight around a little more, but he's still too big to just be poking at everybody like he does.

That's about it for this one. 10-3-3 since coming back from Sweden, 19 goals in the past three games -- not too bad. We're, gasp, sixth in the conference now and only one point back of the division. Suddenly, all this garbage about the Wings not being elite looks funny, again.

One of the benefits of being on Bloguin now is that I'm now closely linked with other excellent team blogs. As a result, I will actually be able to do game previews once a while, in the form of a collaborative article or a quick question and answer session.

Today I e-sat down with friend of the blog Simon from Dan Cloutier for Vezina. I promised him I would not ask about former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson.

1. Obviously, as the name of your blog is Dan Cloutier for Vezina, one could conclude that you either are Dan Cloutier, or you have an unhealthy affinity for him. What kind of negative impact do you think Dan Cloutier's presence at training camp has had on the inconsistent goaltending of Chris Osgood (6-3-2, 2.77, .902) and Jimmy Howard (2-2-1, 2.97, .893)?

I am unfortunately not the most underappreciated goaltender in Canucks history who won 30 games for three straight seasons.  And that was before the dreaded shootouts came into the play.  Sadly, Wings' goaltenders can’t hide behind an excuse like having Cloutier in their training camp as a reason for their poor starts.  Chris Osgood has been a terrible regular season goalie for a while now, but now it seems to be showing a lot more since the Wings are being depleted by injuries.  Of course there is a pretty good chance he’ll pick up his game when the playoffs start

2. I noticed that Vancouver lost to St. Louis 6-1 on Tuesday night. How much of this loss can be attributed to former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson, and how bad has Sammy been overall?

Samuelsson was pretty much invisible on Tuesday night except for the few opportunities that he took to wrist shots from the blue line with no traffic in front of the net.  I’m sure Wings fans are all familiar with his pointless shots on goal from well out.  Most of the blame should probably go to the Canucks so called "top line" of Alex Burrows, Henrik Sedin and Steve Bernier.  Burrows and Sedin were -3 while Sedin scored the only goal to manage to stay -2.

Overall, Samuelsson has been O.K I guess.  It’s hard to argue too much with his stats (8-6-14) but he does so many things over the course of the game that just make me want to kill him.  He’s got to be one of the most uncoachable guys in the league.  He goes for random skates with the puck, takes too many pointless shots that kill momentum, and is a defensive liability.  The Canucks started him on the point on the power play which was a huge mistake.  Too often he would have his shots block or just fumble the puck away to the opponent and watching him try to play defence after that was ugly.  Thankfully that experiment is over for the time being.

3. Who are some of Vancouver's unsung heroes, and how has former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson's presence in the locker room hindered their play?

There are quite a few Canucks who are deserving of the unsung hero title.  Since the team has been hit hard with injuries that are quite a few guys who are playing out of their normal roles and have helped the Canucks through a pretty difficult stretch.  Until the St. Louis game Andrew Raycroft had been playing great.  He was doing pretty much all you can expect from your backup goalie.  Rick Rypien and Tanner Glass have been good energy type players who don’t make a lot of mistakes on the ice but won’t necessarily make any highlight real plays.  Rypien did score the winner against the Rangers though.  Of course there is Ryan Johnson as well.  He’s such an important part of the penalty kill and a fearless shot blocker.  I’m sure Wings fans are familiar with him from all the times they played against him when he was a member of the Blues.

4. Vancouver, like Detroit, is a team much better than their record indicates off to a relatively slow start because of injuries. What injuries have hurt the Canucks the most? Who has stepped up while others are down, and who do you think needs to step up more? What kind of role has this opened up for former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson, and what would you give to go back in time and stop him from signing in Vancouver?

The loss of Daniel Sedin has definitely hurt the most.  Any time you lose your leading scorer it’s going to hurt.  Pavol Demitra hasn’t even got going yet but you still miss his skill on the second line, although I fear what a line with both Demitra and Samuelsson on it would look like.  Losing Michael Grabner was disappointing since he was really starting to get going for the first time in his brief NHL career.  The Luongo injury didn’t hurt as much as expected since Raycroft and Schneider really played solid in his absence.

As for stepping up, when Daniel went down with broken foot, Ryan Kesler really stepped up as being the best player on the team.  No one on the team seems to be able to single handedly dominate a shift like he can.  Mason Raymond has been pretty good most of the time as well and is now taking on bigger responsibilities such as playing on the second line and getting a regular shift both on the power play and penalty kill.  Christian Ehrhoff has also quietly gone about his business and is up to 12 points on the season and a +7.

Samuelsson has been counted on to score more goals with all the injuries and realistically he’s done that much.  Playing with Raymond and Kesler has been good for him since both of those players like to carry the puck through the neutral zone so there is less opportunity for Samuelsson to do so.  He’s actually picked up a few goals in front of the net which is nice.  When he was playing with Henrik Sedin and Burrows who are more cycle type players it gave Sammy too many opportunities to screw up.

I‘d give a lot if the Canucks could go back in time and find someone who could provide the same offense with less defensive liability for the same price.  I’m sure there were a lot of those types of players available too.  Oh well.

5. Looking outside of the NHL, your province has great meaning to Red Wings fans, as it managed to produce Steve Yzerman. Canada will be under Red Wings command as Yzerman, Mike Babcock, and Ken Holland are playing a big role in selecting Team Canada. What are your expectations for the team's selection? What Canucks do you expect will be playing in front of the home crowd come February? Lastly, are you concerned that long injuries to Olympic locks such as Johan Franzen open up a spot for former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson, and do you expect Sweden has any hope of medaling with him in the line-up?

I don’t know if I’d say I have any expectations as to the selection of Team Canada.  We obviously have a lot of talented players in the country and I’m confident that whatever Yzerman ultimately decides will be the best roster that the team can come up with.  I’m not going to debate the merits of whether someone like Joe Thornton should or should not be on the team because I think with all the skill here we can’t really go wrong.  Obviously after the tournament is over we’ll say so and so should have been on the team instead of someone else.  Especially if we don’t win the gold.

There are quite a few Canucks who are either locks to make an Olympic roster or will get serious consideration.  Obviously, Luongo is going to be a part of Canada, the Sedins for Sweden, Kesler for USA, Christian Ehrhoff for Germany, and Sami Salo for Finland.  Alex Edler will be in contention for Sweden, as will Samuelsson obviously.  Demitra would be a lock for Slovakia but with his injury it’s not totally clear when he’s going to return.

If the Detroit Red Wings can win the Cup with Samuelsson in the line-up then Sweden can win the gold medal with Samuelsson on the team.  Even if he makes it he’d play in a reduced role so I’d say yes they’d have a chance to medal with Mikael there.

BONUS: Do you agree that former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson looks like a housecat?

Yes, absolutely.

--

Thanks, Simon!

See what I did there?

It's so much easier to start writing a post like this, opposed to the Toronto game. That game just drained me, I had nothing to say because everything went wrong. This game went a little differently, in that almost nothing went wrong tonight. Seriously, this game was nearly perfect. Let's recap:

• Nine goals scored by seven different players.
• A road game, and a game coming off an embarrassing loss.
• Cleary, Bertuzzi, Leino, Draper, and Abdelkader all scored. If Eaves had scored (he hit a crossbar), that would literally be every candidate that people have called out to step up in the absence of Williams.
• Balanced scoring -- every Red Wing was either +1 or +2.
• Only goal against was questionable, but Nick Lidstrom knocks that into the corner 99 out of 100 times.
• Slumping powerplay was 2-for-4.
• Lebda and Ericsson were almost invisible. This could only mean this was their best game together.
• Penalty kill was perfect.
• Rick Nash broke his streak of physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically dominating Brian Rafalski.
• Jimmy Howard isn't making anyone stab their eyes out.
• The Wings got out to an early lead and actually continued trying for the rest of the game (!!!). What a freaking concept.
  

And so on and so forth. Satisfying. Hockey would be boring if Detroit won every game 9-1 (I'm not saying I wouldn't enjoy it this season, but over a few years, that'd wear), but it's just so nice to have a few of these games where there is literally no stress. Detroit's found a way to make just about every game interesting, in good and bad ways. But a game like this every two weeks? I'll take it.

There's a special satisfaction in beating Columbus. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's bitterness over the 8-2 loss, but I felt like it was before that. They're most like Detroit's little brother, and like little brothers everywhere know, it's just really fun for the older brother to whip on the younger brother once in a while. Also, I don't like Ken Hitchcock. I couldn't be happier that this was his 1,000th game. I don't find him to be a terrible coach, I just don't like his demeanor. And I don't like that stupid quote about "making Detroit bleed." Talk about bulletin board material. Yep, good job Ken, Jared Boll made Brad May bleed, and Dan Cleary looked like he had a few stitches in the chin. Meanwhile, Detroit scored nine goals, eight on your team's second best player.

I can think of only one downside to this game -- Detroit now has no excuses. I knew that no matter how depleted the forward crop got, this team could still score goals. Mickey Redmond's pre-game words of how "Detroit will need to learn to win a 2-1 game" just taste extra sweet right now. This team can score, and it's still elite -- it just needed to prove that to itself. But should they fall apart again, it's going to to be even more aggravating knowing that this team can thoroughly dominate.

On the note of thorough domination, it's important to take in why things ended up the way they did. Detroit got a few turnovers absolutely gift-wrapped by Jackets defensemen. But why did this happen? Because Detroit was relentless on the puck and they forced the Jacket defenders to make the play quicker. This is exactly what other teams have been doing to Detroit's defensemen all season long. Eaves especially made a great kamikazee dive towards Jan Hejda, who lost it up the boards on a weak clear to Lebda.

What else? Jimmy Howard is an interesting topic. Perfect? No, actually quite terrifying that he still didn't look confident until the Wings were up by five. But I think this is the type of game we should be able to expect from Howard. Wasn't particularly good on the goals, wasn't making any particularly monsterous saves, but he made a few big ones, and didn't hurt the team. More than that, it was nice that he actually got a really good effort from the defense in front of him. They did a great job corraling the rebounds that Howard let go astray, a clear sign that the team is getting more comfortable with the goalie.

Anyway, before I started writing this I watched the end of Colorado and Chicago, Chicago took it in a shootout. This leaves Detroit three back of the division with a game in hand. Not too shabby. Let's hope they can carry some momentum back to the Joe, against a Canuck team coming off a 6-1 loss to St. Louis.

Quick aesthetic note: I'm not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to triple post, stretch out the page with a poorly sized YouTube video, and disable comments last night, but for some reason that's what I did. I spent the last half hour or so cleaning all that up, though for some reason comments are still disabled on the last post. I'm not too worried about it -- if you have something to say, just stick it inhere. Also, the I realized that I'm way behind the times on the Blogroll. I had a bunch of blogs that I read regularly that weren't even on there, so it should be all up to date now. If I missed you for some reason, just drop me a line and I'll throw it up, it was nothing personal.

Anyway, kudos to Chris from Motown Wings for totally calling this yesterday. Chris clearly saw the writing on the wall with this one, where was everyone else? Really, the math is quite simple:

• Jason Williams snaps his leg, joining Valtteri Filppula and Johan Franzen on LTIR
• Drew Miller is on waivers.
• Drew Miller is from Michigan State.
• Drew Miller makes the league minimum.
• Detroit, sadly, has a high waiver priority right now.
• Jeremy Williams was being talked about as a potential call-up.

So, the need for Drew was clear. He probably won't be rushed into the lineup tonight, but there's a good chance he'll be in the lineup against Vancouver tomorrow over Brad May or Kirk Maltby, or possibly Patrick Eaves if there is something wrong with his bruised foot. There was talk about calling up Jeremy Williams, Kris Newbury, or Jamie Tardif, but none of those possibilities looked all too enticing to me. Rather than making a move at this point, I think Drew Miller is worth a shot.

The lesser Miller comes courtesy of the Tampa Bay Lightning, where for some reason, his zero points and -3 rating in 14 games just wasn't cutting it. But the Bolts definitely wanted him in the offseason, as he was the main part of the return that saw he's-so-dirty-but-I'd-love-him-as-a-Wing Evgeni Artyukhin shipped to Anaheim. Prior to that, he was actually a pretty promising prospect.

After a successful career at Michigan State, his last season being Justin Abdelkader's first, Miller had what you might call "baptism by fire" as two of his first three NHL games were in the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals. He looked pretty good, and I was convinced by this point he'd be a second line power forward, but that shows what I know, I guess.

His next two seasons were not nearly as productive in the NHL. The following year, he was pretty evenly split with 31 games in the AHL (36 points) and 26 in the NHL (5 points). Last season, his AHL totally took a dive (38 points in 53 games) but he was more productive in 27 games in the NHL, though all of his four goals came in the month of March. He did play every playoff game, and in my mind he really stood out against Detroit. There was one game in the series where he had five good scoring chances, including two breakaways, but Chris Osgood was just all over him. Other than that, he was mostly solid in his 4th line role.

But let's not celebrate just yet, keep in mind this guy was just cut by the Lightning, for being scoreless. But he's 25 and this is only his 4th professional season, so there's still some promise in him. I think he'll make a good 4th liner as a temporary fix. He's got size -- at 6-foot-2 he's actually the third tallest Wings forward behind Bertuzzi and Franzen, but at 178 pounds, he's outweighed by any other skater on Detroit by at least 10 pounds. Not what you'd call NHL size, and disappointing that he hasn't been able to put on weight in three professional seasons. He's not a strong skater, but he's got a pretty quick set of hands and he won't cheat you on effort. He's got a good shot, but so far his scoring touch in the NHL has been limited.

A solid pickup for now. Detroit can hold onto him until two of the three LTIR forwards return, then, provided nobody else is on LTIR, they can waive him and try to get him to Grand Rapids. That's assuming he doesn't really pick his game up in Detroit, in which case Brad May could be AHL-bound. I like the move though, gives us some flexibility and much needed depth without having to dip into one of Grand Rapids' key players.

As you may or may not know, the Detroit Red Wings lost a third straight game to the Toronto Maple Leafs. To put that into perspective, if Detroit were in a best-of-seven (year) series with Toronto, Toronto would be one game away from the sweep. That's right, the team that brought you great moments like this and this, are officially in "dominant" category over the best team of the decade.

A busy/sick weekend did a pretty fine job of preventing me from doing a post-game review on that one, but what is there to say? Detroit, content with winning three in a row, figured they could get away with a win if they just did not try for 60 straight minutes. Zetterberg seemed pretty determined to keep up his Selke-caliber play of late, but other than that, nobody really did anything good. Dan Cleary got his 100th career goal, which hopefully will mean that he won't be invisible for games at a time anymore. According to Dan Keniels during the game, the only two teams Datsyuk hasn't scored against are Toronto and the Islanders, and I thought Pavs did a pretty good job at keeping that streak alive. That said, if Vesa Toskala is in net, Detroit still wins that game -- Jonas Gustavsson is the truth.

And because Detroit just absolutely cannot lose a game without having something equally as devastating happening. That came in the form of Jason Williams fracturing his fibula, to which Leafs' blog Down Goes Brown (if you're in to hockey blogs, it's an absolute must read even if you despise the Leafs. Trust me, he hates them too) pretty much summed up the gruesomeness of the injury as hilariously as possible:

"9:36 - Despite a lifetime of attending live sporting events, I've never caught a puck or a foul ball. But my luck may be changing. Tonight, I caught Jason Williams' fibula."

Good stuff.

With this bad news came confusing news, when, according to super-journalist Bruce MacLeod, Brad Stuart will take his spot on the second powerplay unit. Now, some of you may remember my incessant whining last year to get Stuart on the second powerplay over Mikael Samuelsson. Despite his point totals, Stuart's a great skater, solid puck-mover, and he can shoot, so I didn't think he could do too much worse than Mikael "Sniper" Samuelsson. But here's a number for you: 100.1. That was what Jonathan Ericsson registered in the AHL Skills Competition two years ago. I was very disappointed that after Williams went down, in a 5-1 game, Ericsson didn't even get a look on the powerplay. His confidence is low right now, and he does tend to trip over himself, but seriously -- 100.1! He's got three goals this year, and he can't kill penalties to save his life, why not give him a chance on the powerplay. Oh well, there's time -- Williams is out 6-8 weeks.

Jimmy Howard gets the start tomorrow against Columbus, hopefully he doesn't blow it and force me to write another detailed frame-by-frame of how he let in his goals. And hey, look at this:

Todd Bertuzzi | Pavel Datsyuk | Tomas Holmstrom
Ville Leino | Henrik Zetterberg | Dan Cleary
Patrick Eaves | Darren Helm | Kris Draper
Kirk Maltby | Justin Abdelkader | Brad May

Marian Hossa | Valtteri Filppula | Johan Franzen
Mikael Samuelsson | Jason Williams | Jiri Hudler
Aaron Downey | ..Ty Conklin? | Darren McCarty

Okay, I couldn't quite fill up four lines but for some reason I thought I could when I started that. I feel like the three-lined Departed Wings team could give the Actual Wings team a good run for their money right now. Except for the fact that most of those guys are injured, one is a goalie, and one is a Versus analyst. If you want to go back another year and count the one game Chelios played forward, you could do a Hartigan/Chelios/Drake combo as well, so there's your 4th line. Still, the Wings were pretty bad against the Leafs.

To finish this off, I would be the worst Wings' blogger in the world (instead of the second worst, like usual) if I didn't even acknowledge that Steve Yzerman is now in the Hall of Fame. There are literally no accolades left after every other blog out there gave him a proper send off. Instead, I'll advise you to watch his speech. This was the first year I ever watched the actual HOF inductions live, and I enjoyed it, as it was mostly about how good the 2001-02 Wings were.

Awesome stuff. It's not easy to admit, but things are bleak right now -- relative to the rest of the decade. Sure, that only means that for once, we're not currently winning the division, so non-Wings fans may play the whining card, but it's unfamiliar territory to a many fans, myself including (1994-95 was the first season I followed). But this season has brought about more "omg end of the red wings?!?!!?" type talk than most people are used to hearing. Hopefully right now, with three top six forwards injured (in addition to three top six forwards who departed in the offseason) this will be our rough patch to the season. But to be certain, it's not going to last. This team has the talent -- and more importantly, the leadership. Though he hasn't laced up the skates in a few seasons, that leadership started with Steve Yzerman. Yzerman himself will tell you Scotty Bowman was the one who groomed him into the leader and two-way player he became, but it's pretty obvious he had some very mold-able clay to work with. But the best qualities of Steve have been passed on to this new generation of Red Wings, and that lone gives me the confidence that they'll right the ship and get everything in working order as quickly as possible.

And that is the impact of a true captain.

All this chaos and panic, and Detroit's a point back of the Central Division lead with a game in hand. And that game is tomorrow against the Leafs, so it's basically an assured win (note: if the Leafs win I'll take full responsibility).

This review is late.. obviously. I had to DVR the game, and of course it cut off with a minute left in OT. Luckily FSN re-ran the game, so I turned it on at 2 to catch the shootout. Talk about suspense.

I thought this was one of Detroit's best efforts of the season so far, definitely a statement game that they're still the best in the West, since they knocked off the Sharks and

Since this is so late and everyone's basically done discussing it, I'll be brief. Osgood was good, Ericsson was shaky.. blah blah. Here are my three big points.

- Zetterberg was absolutely possessed. Best player on either team. That shootout goal was nasty, nice to see him mix it up for a change. But his defensive play was top notch. There's a reason you barely noticed Jumbo Joe Thornton last night, and his name is Henrik Zetterberg.

- Kris Draper. Helm was stellar, I'm amazed he's able to turn playoff mode on so quickly. But with this talk about how good Eaves and Helm was, it wasn't until this game that Draper proved his worth to me. He didn't look bad on this line before, but in my mind he cemented his place here permanently. I had a problem with him and Maltby just going through the motions in the regular season, but this was Draper's best game in years. He was all over, he was causing problems, he even had scoring chances. Look like a new man, hopefully he doesn't lose it.

- Todd Bertuzzi. I'm almost done defending him. I think he's playing well, but until he starts finishing there's nothing I can do to defend all these other fans who act like he's doing nothing out there. He's had too many glorious chances -- most that he creates, but it's time he starts capitalizing.

Lastly, I need to touch on the news that Brad May is my hero. Just when I'm getting equally fed up with both Ericsson and Lebda, Brad May apparently hooks Andreas Lilja up with a chiropractor in Vancouver. Chiropractor works his magic and bam -- Lilja has been headache free for three days (as of like two days ago). What happens next? This guy's been out since March. He's skated lately, but hasn't participated in contact drills. Sounds like he was going to within the coming days, so I'm interested to hear what happens. I don't know anything about head injuries other than that I know I don't want one.

But the big problem with Lilja was the recurring headaches. Now that they're gone, who thinks he might be a week or two away from returning. That's kind of where I'm leaning. He won't be the same, but I think he can still be strong and steady. Lebda's been better lately, but Ericsson's getting worse. Lebda just isn't a guy who's going to bail Ericsson out when he trips over his own skates. Lilja can do that.. Since Babcock refuses to break up that pairing, I do like the idea of the two giant Swedes on the same pairing.

Here's to hoping for more good news.

Perhaps.

First, Chris Osgood -- finally. This was his best performance of the season, easily. He didn't have to stand on his head, and he did have three straight series in the 1st period where the puck ended up past him and he got bailed out by the laws of friction and/or the post. Still, this is a game that'll help his confidence.

But onto the story of the night -- Doug Janik. I did not expect to come online today and see people raving about him. But, that appears to be the case.

I didn't think he was great. Am I the only one who had that strange stomach feeling every time he touched the puck? What is it? It's the fear. I am terrified of the idea of Doug Janik holding the puck. You might be thinking, well yeah, a big guy who can skate, if he could handle the puck he'd be in the NHL, and that's exactly right. The Wings need someone of his style to fill in for Lilja. But the difference is Lilja can lug the puck up the ice and make a strong breakout pass. Janik looked really nervous with the puck on his stick, he's not a Detroit-style player.

Meanwhile, Brett Lebda looked like a man possessed in the first two periods and he shot right to the net every play he could. Derek Meech was even able to take a regular shift and take himself off the mistake list. Great efforts from both Is it any coincidence that both played well in the two Ericsson-free games? I think Ericsson is still better than both, but it's further proof that they should not be on the third pairing together.

Anyway, Detroit made the right decision and Janik is back to Grand Rapids this afternoon. But I do think he was much better than he looked in the pre-season, where he seemed to fall all over the ice randomly. However, the real story here is that Janik was called up over Jakub Kindl. Keep in mind Kindl signed a one-way deal in the offseason, so he must play in Detroit next season. He hasn't had a great start so far. He'll need to get some NHL time to prove his worth sooner rather than later. But Janik proving to not be a complete screw up in addition to Andy Delmore, who's hurt right now but Detroit obviously likes, Kindl will need to play a little more consistently to get an injury recall.

This game should have been more lopsided, I feel. Datsyuk and Zetterberg both played at the level everyone knows they can, which gives Detroit a chance to win no matter what. Detroit let up too many shots, but I felt the defense was better in that it didn't shoot itself in the foot with stupid mistakes, for the first time this season. Is that in any way related to Brian Rafalski having the flu? I'll let you be the judge.

On individual notes, Patrick Eaves is an entirely different player since he scored against Edmonton. He needs to stay on Helm's line because they're dangerous on every shift. Todd Bertuzzi made a lot of stupid passes, but I think he's still the becoming a dangerous offensive player. That holding call on him that stopped his breakaway was awful. Unless he held up Wideman before the camera's got there, he just stuck out his arm and Wideman tripped over his own skates. The blind passes are the biggest problem, his two-way play has still been strong. Just get it to Datsyuk and get open, never, ever throw it out the middle.

Leino needs to be better. He looked good early but turned it off as soon as he got promoted to the Helm line. I feel like I'm the only one talking about how Dan Cleary is almost invisible right now. Past two games have been better, but I don't recall him doing anything noticeable (actually he had a really nice stick lift on a 1st period flurry that stopped a sure goal). Jason Williams made a few really good two-way plays that I need to mention before he screws up and people talk about how he doesn't play any defense. His penalty was stupid though. Borderline call, but one that they always make when a team is down by two in the 3rd.

San Jose on Thursday, should be an interesting showdown as they've been red hot lately. Rafalski and Ericsson sound like they'll be back, which is bad news against a Sharks team with a ton of offensive firepower. But.. gotta be optimistic, right?

Extremely late review, I'm aware. The evils of FSD+ prevented me from seeing this game last night. So I spent all day sucking up the apartment's internet connection to torrent it, because I'm just too impatient to wait 48 or 72 hours for NHL Gamecenter to archive it. I just watched it tonight, and I wanted to put up some thoughts for discussion.

Overall, I was pleased with the effort. Offensively, the team needs to do more, but you've got to consider this was probably one of the weakest offensive lineups the team has ever put forth outside of the pre-season. It was one thing to lose Filppula, but Leino out of the lineup basically left Detroit without what was their second line coming into the season, although Leino has hardly lived up to the billing. Add to that they basically lost last year's second line in the offseason, and you've got one strange looking lineup. I'm sure any non-Wings fan will come in here and give us the ol' "oh, boo-hoo, you've still got Datsyuk and Zetterberg," which is absolutely true. But it's just a strange feeling in Detroit.

What resulted from the lack of offensive depth was a much better defensive effort. Offense was not completely neglected. The team still put up 30 shots, only five of which came from Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Holmstrom, Lidstrom, and Rafalski, which is strange because on any given night you can usually count on two of them hitting at least five. But each line played solid defensive hockey and there were no shifts where I was screaming at the TV because they either tried to finesse it out of the zone or just stood around Osgood as Calgary got to whack away at him. Even the team's defensemen actually looked pretty good, which is good news for Lidstrom/Kronwall/Stuart/Rafalski (who all played 24+ minutes) but bad news for Meech/Lebda (who played just over half of that -- combined).

A couple quick topics tonight -- pretty much everything eventful was covered in other blogs who don't have FSD+ issues.

The cycle -- The patented Detroit cycle seems to have been resurging after it was nonexistent through the team's first few games. Each Detroit line is hemming the opponent in their own zone for solid lengths of time at least a couple times per game. Against Calgary though, it was pretty evident that this is something absolutely crucial to keep up. Detroit's first two powerplays came courtesy of fine puck control along the boards by Dan Cleary (Regehr's hook) and an absolute clinic on cycling and using Flame defenders as human pylons by the Datsyuk line (Conroy's trip). Which brings me to my next point:

The powerplay -- Sucks. One of the worst things nobody's talking about yet, as it basically did nothing on this five-game road trip. Yeah, sure, we lost all those goals and so many more are injured right now, but the first unit has been the same for a few years now and they're not doing much either. What's the deal? I'm not sure. I'd like to suggest better shot selection. The emphasis has always been shots from the point, but Calgary ate that up all game and probably set some kind of blocked shot record. Obviously we have players who can shoot from back there, but there's just no need to wire the puck on net when you've got such capable playmakers like Datsyuk on the high wing. I'd like to see Datsyuk with a puck a little bit more on the first unit, because he's dangerous with the cross-ice stuff as well as curling in towards the net and shooting. Other suggestions?

Two disclaimers: before everyone blames the powerplay's inefficiency on Jason Williams, just do so knowing that only one non-Holmstrom player has more than one powerplay goal, and, youbetcha, it's Slick Willy. That said, before Ericsson becomes the new defensive whipping boy (which will happen whenever Lebda leaves the lineup), I'd like to see him given a chance on the second unit. Rotate him in with both Kronwall and Williams, or move Williams up front since Leino doesn't seem to like playing hockey right now. Ericsson has been a defensive failure so far, but I think he could win you over if he played much less (read: not at all) on the penalty kill and more on the powerplay, because he doesn't seem to have a problem scoring in the NHL.

The Speed of Death -- New name for the Eaves/Helm/Draper unit? Probably not, I don't like it much. But I do want this line to stick together for as long as possible. Draper looks rejuvenated now that he's finally off the 4th line. Helm has really responded well to being a healthy scratch and was definitely the most noticeable Wing all night besides Zetterberg. Both of them do seem to have some chemistry with Eaves, who definitely did have a little more swagger last night after scoring a goal on Thursday. He didn't do much with his powerplay time, but like we've just been over, nobody really is, so why single out Eaves for it? There is just an awful lot of ice covered by that unit, I hope they stay together.

Those are my big major points. Going into Tuesday against Boston, I haven't heard any of any lineup changes. Brad May (who looks less and less impressive each time a new player gets hurt, which decreases the chances of him getting taken out) took a Williams' errant stick to the eye. He sounds okay, but I wouldn't bank on him playing. That means Leino will likely come back in. I say for now, just stick him right on the 4th line. He was awesome in the playoffs with Abdelkader, maybe that will give the 4th line some additional spark. He's the first rookie Detroit's had in a while who didn't have to work his way up (not counting the work he did last year) as they basically guaranteed him Hudler's spot on the 2nd line and PP. He looked good in Sweden, but I've barely mentioned him since. For now, he's got to be on the 4th line as Detroit got really good efforts from each yesterday, and throwing a guy who's just been coasting onto one of those lines seems like a bad idea.

Wrapping up, Osgood was very untested but still solid. It's not the big saves I want to see him make, anyway, because I know he can do that -- it's the really weak/bad angle shots that have him making me nervous lately. Zetterberg and Datsyuk really have to step it up without Filppula. Zetterberg did just about all he could do against Calgary. I say nine times out of ten if he plays that way he walks away with two goals -- just wasn't getting the luck. Datsyuk needs to keep bringing it every shift and to be a little more selfish with the puck. Bertuzzi's looked good, but he holds the puck too much for my liking on that line. He's not really hogging it, because he protects it well, but Datsyuk is far more dangerous. Bertuzzi has been looking better and better to me in the offensive zone, but I think he might need to take a page out of Holmstrom's book by getting the puck to Datsyuk, and then getting to a place on the ice where he can wire a shot.

That's all for tonight. Finishing out October 5-4-2 was not what anyone expected, but it could have gone much worse. This team was not ready to start the season, but they were really bailed out some nights where the full 60 minute effort wasn't there. They came pretty close to that against Calgary, at least enough where there wasn't a huge defensive collapse for a change. It was an ugly month, but hopefully this game can be a turn around point of sorts.

Please excuse the over 24 hours late recap. Last night left me punishing my head against a wall. When I regained consciousness, I was in and out of the emergency room as I worked on my weekly Winging it in Motown article. I knew what everyone would write their game recap on, and I knew what I needed to write mine on. I just didn't want to do it, because it's not going to be the popular opinion.

Sometimes, we just know too much about hockey.

I was quite enthused about one James Howard, and his performance against the NHL team known as the Vancouver Canucks. Osgood put the team in a, seemingly, unspeakable hole early in the game and I nearly thought the game was over. Howard came in, and while he looked god awful doing it, he made the saves he needed to make, had no chance on the two goals he let up, but rallied as Detroit took the victory. Victory, such an underused word these days.

In my recap, I was elated. As someone who has watched Howard in the NCAA and AHL, a good two/three dozen times, I know what the guy is capable of. I was never too happy with Howard in his previous NHL stints. Sometimes he just didn't look ready, other times the team in front of him just didn't gel and sat too far back on their heels with a rookie goalie in net. It's a common mistake, but not something that should lead to a goalie going 1-7 in three year's worth of games. I wrote some things, that eerily came into play after the Edmonton game. Here's a sample:

• "I was amazed at the number of people writing him off, especially about him being a "bust draft pick." "
• Let's hope that confidence will help him iron out some of the rebound issues, and we can still count on him for reliable backup minutes.
• I think you've got to ride out Howard until he falls apart (he likely will, but don't write him off again, please).

I asked, passionately. This is a rookie goaltender. I don't care how old his is, he's going to hit some bumps. Those bumps are going to look like mountains when you've got a team in front of him that refuses to take care of the puck in their own end and refuses to play in the 1st period like they do in the 3rd.

But what do I see after yesterday's game? Essentially, Howard's head called for on a platter. I'm surprised there isn't a bounty on his head, to be quite honest.

I don't mean everyone, though. I had a good discussion with Chris at Motown Wings about it -- he was the only one I could bring myself to respond to. Because Chris gave reasons why he's unhappy with Howard. What I'm absolutely sick of hearing is how Howard "doesn't look like an NHL goaltender." What does that mean? What am I supposed to say to that? How many people saying this are actually goalie coaches? Because I'm sure not, so I admit that I don't know everything to look for. What I do know is that Jimmy Howard is a 25-year-old goaltender that Detroit has groomed, nitpicked, and observed much more frequently than I have for the past five seasons. If they did not believe that he was an NHL goaltender, he would not be in the NHL. Detroit is painfully picky with their prospects, if they did not believe he was capable of 25-30 games, there would be three goalies on Detroit, or Howard would be part of an ugly goaltending committee on a team like Toronto or the Islanders. Joey MacDonald much?

Yet, many fans are absolutely done with him. A guy who has spent a grand total of three weeks in the NHL. Sure, he had spotty time in a few seasons before that, but what kind of unfair pressure is it on a goalie to say "here, you get this one start right now and if you don't play well, you'll never see the NHL again." I thought Howard was good in most of those games, much better than a 1-6 record. But he sucked against St. Louis, and then again last night. But keep these things in mind (bullets are nice):

• Chris Osgood, for the second straight season, has not outperformed Howard by any stretch and has showed no signs of putting together a reasonable season.
  
• Chris Osgood let up two of the weakest goals in his career against Vancouver, and Howard held on to get the win.
• Jimmy Howard is a rookie goalie -- name me a rookie goalie that was flawless (or even close to it) as a rookie and I'll close down this blog right now. It's rocky road, look no further than superstars like Roberto Luongo, J-S Giguere, and Miikka Kiprusoff as guys who needed multiple NHL stops before they put that together. Am I putting Howard in that company? No. But I'm saying that teams who gave up early on goaltenders regretted it later.
• Jimmy Howard had a .936 save percentage in his relief effort against Buffalo, and his start against Colorado and Vancouver. As I told Chris at Motown, goalie stats mean nothing this early in the year (and look no further than Osgood's 08/09 regular season vs. his playoff to see what they mean overall), but you can't look at that and say he's been absolutely awful.
• Detroit has not had a rookie goalie since the Maracle/Hodson days. Joey MacDonald does not count, I think Detroit kept him on the roster accidentally.
• Howard actually saved a few pucks in the second and third period -- even overtime. And, gasp, he didn't just bend over and take it in the shootout like every other goalie we've had since the shootout era started.

That said, Howard sucked last night. Inexcusable. For some reason, he was sliding all over the ice and he even tripped over himself two or three times. Nerves? Bad ice? Untied skates? Lack of talent? All four? Who knows? He needs to be better. But the amount of people writing him off -- after he bailed out Osgood against Vancouver. He made a dozen huge saves, there's no way we wouldn't have had two points in that game if Babcock left Osgood in for another goal.

And as I predicted -- and a few people emphasize in the comments to that post, he was bound to fall apart. That's the way it goes for rookie goalies. Especially rookie goalies who were never consistently stellar in the AHL (though to be fair, he was not nearly as inconsistent in the AHL as some are making it out to be right now, just because it's easy to throw that out there and make him sound like a joke) and were not really drooled over in their draft season. But how can you see that one game and determine that's it for him? Under different circumstances, I might agree. but I watched the goals over and over again. And if you can all sit there and tell me that the defense did their job on all of those goals -- again, I will give up this blog right now and stop watching hockey. I feel insane sometimes. Why isn't anyone else talking about this. How 'bout this -- quick breakdown.

Here are the highlights. They're not long -- right now we're just focusing on the two and a half minutes which features Howard getting lit up for five goals. Watch them -- and please, let me know if you agree with me or not here.

Goal #1 -- Rafalski gets mauled behind the net and falls, a common defense mechanism for him. Cleary and Bertuzzi drift behind and chases the puck. In doing so, one of them (or some other neglectful defender on the ice) leaves an Oiler that I cannot identify wide open in front of the net. He gets a centering feed and puts it on net and Stuart steps into him, Howard makes a nice pad save and kicks the rebound over to the boards, where it should be. Filppula fires a weak clearing attempt up the boards that is stopped, and Cleary and Bertuzzi basically abandon the defensive zone. An Oiler takes the puck and centers it to JF Jacques in the middle of the ice. I believe this is where Howard's mistake was, as he set himself for a Jacques' shot. Jacques either let the puck go past him or just missed it (this is likely, he's not good) and Pouliot has a glorious chance that Howard gets a piece of. Jacques puts in the rebound and Rafalski does his best statue impression in front, not moving from the point of Pouliot's shot to the moment after Jacques scored. Howard was down and out and had no chance, but made himself look extra scrub like by spinning and sliding to basically the low slot. I think there were three faults here, it doesn't all fall on Howard. Filppula should have cleared, Rafalski should have done.. anything in front of the net, and Howard should have picked up that he had a 3-on-1 and not a 2-on-1.

Goal #2 -- Rafalski (whoa, common theme already!?!) gets absolutely walked by Hemsky inside the blueline. He thought he was a blitzing linebacker or something -- there is no need to charge at a dangerous stickhandler like Ales Hemsky. He totally flies past and basically vacates the zone. This creates an odd-man situation down low, but Hemsky (who suffers from superstar syndrome -- everything he does has to be highlight reel, even though he'd be much better if he kept it simple) loses it to Zetterberg, who loses it in the corner. Hemsky centers a pass to a defenseman in the high slot who unleashes a high shot that Howard makes a nice save on. The rebound goes airborne, and Penner outmuscles Rafalski (no way, really?!) and bats it in out of mid-air. I don't actually blame Rafalski for getting outmuslced because Penner is 6'4 and currently on fire. The only fault on this play in my eyes is Rafalski for getting blown past in the first place. I don't see how you can expect Howard to perfect corral that high shot when he had to move from his post to the top of the crease. The rebound wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible. It was up in the air and it was headed to the side of the ice, and not up the middle which is traditionally where "bad rebounds" live. Think about how absolutely perfect that timing had to be for Penner to get to the front of the net at just that moment and be able to bat the puck in, under the crossbar, before Howard could react. Also on the play, Ken Daniels says raises doubts about his own sexuality by saying, "and it's a hot guy who gets it!" as Penner scores.

Goal #3 -- Penalty kill, so we know right from here how fun this one is going to be. One of the biggest problems with the penalty kill is the fact that Detroit allows the cross ice pass way too easily. This time, Hemsky seams it across the ice for a one-timer, which is out of the 6'5 Jonathan Ericsson's reach so that should tell you that he had no idea where the cross ice man (aka "his" man) was standing. Ericsson did block the one-time attempt, and it went out front. Filppula engaged an Oiler for it and lost, and Howard tripped over his skates pushing to the middle of the ice (d'oh). The Oiler got it to Hemsky. Howard pushed over too far and left Hemsky a lot of net to shoot at, but still, Hemsky picked his corner. I do think this was Howard's worst goal of the game. Ericsson blew the cross-ice pass to start it all, but the defense did have the pass covered once Hemsky had the puck. Hemsky hesitated, and Howard pushed over too far -- I think tripping and falling may have thrown him off, because he had to get over a little quicker than he should have needed to. I think a little less of a push and a little more of a challenge would have been good, because Hemsky would have had less net to shoot at and he, theoretically, wouldn't have been able to pass it across and take advantage of Howard being aggressive. But aggressiveness typically goes hand in hand with confidence. Raise your hand right now if you think Howard was at all feeling confident before taking on this shot. Still, bad.

Goal #4 -- Bertuzzi fired an ill-advised pass to Rafalski (gasp!) who lost it to Penner (?) who springs Hemsky for a clear breakaway. Hemsky fakes, dekes to the backhand and puts it five hole. It wasn't the prettiest deke, but I let Howard off the hook. As I mentioned earlier, Hemsky suffers from superstar syndrome. He, like pretty much every roller hockey player I've ever played with, feels the need to make every breakaway look as effortless as possible. As a result, Hemsky has become quite adept at making goalies look stupid by keeping the puck on the ice and minimizing movements to keep goalies guessing. He's easily one of the best in the league at this. He's got one of the best career shootout percentages, and I can assure you that 80% of the shootout goals he's scored were in this same vein. He waits as long as he can to make a move, and then makes one quick move to open the goalie's five hole. He'll try to go five hole, and if he doesn't he'll try to put it off the post. Bertuzzi was the most at fault here, but I don't understand what Rafalski was doing either. Howard challenged, but Hemsky hit his five hole. Didn't look great, but there's not much he can do. It's Hemsky. Maybe on another player I'd look at it differently. But Hemsky made no mistake on the move, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

Goal #5 -- I'm not even going to get into this and try to sum up what happened one play at a time. Howard made a great point blank save on Penner to start off the play, and then things get messy as the Oilers have four or five whacks at a lose puck while Penner is down and out. All I want you to notice on this one is that Penner was all over Howard's legs, and the puck was loose for a couple of seconds. Tell me right now if Penner was Holmstrom, would he have been called for goaltender interference. And if the ref was Brad Watson, would the play have been allowed to continue that long? It was loose, so it's the right call, but this just seems like the kind of play Detroit gets screwed on a dozen times a season, Howard flailed and did all he could, but no Detroit defenseman was able to bail him out and Edmonton eventually scored. You can't really fault the defense, you can't really fault Howard. If you don't like the term "puck luck" look at a play like to this understand the difference between teams who catch breaks and teams who don't.

Is all of this fair? I need some feedback here. I spent about 45 minutes there watching each goal frame by frame about 15-20 times. To clarify, I'm not at all trying to argue that Howard played well. Because the goals were only part of it, Howard did a lot of random flailing and looked like an entirely different goalie than he did against Vancouver. But he got the job done, and I'd argue that we'd be hearing none of this if Howard only surrendered two or three.

Anyway, I'm not too happy with the Wings right now. I do think that the Wings are extremely lucky to get a point. I really want to leave the discussion for this open to Howard-only, but I do have a few other thoughts. First, Leino and Cleary have been invisible lately, and Leino was the guy I singled out for being the best in the Sweden games. Second, why did Datsyuk and Zetterberg shoot on Khabibulin. Especially against Datsyuk, Khabibulin is someone who has been miserable against Detroit over the years. He bites on dekes. Both of them took a shot from the slot like they were shooting on a goalie in warm ups. If they don't want to play in the shootout, they shouldn't be forced to play.

And the perfect icing on the cake is that Filppula broke his wrist and is out 6-8 weeks. Wooo! What now? Eurotwins are obviously broken up based on the fact that Helm, Abdelkader, Draper, and Williams are the team's only natural centers. Eaves and Helm were actually great against Edmonton so hopefully either one of them will get some ice time. So I'm not even going to play around with lines tonight, because they'll depress me.

What I do want to suggest is what happens if Detroit loses out the rest of this road trip? They'll be without Filppula still, and Franzen, -- and that's missing a lot of their high end offensive firepower. I almost wonder if Detroit would take a chance and just call up a guy like Cory Emmerton, Mattias Ritola, or even Dick Axelsson or Tomas Tatar, and just give them a few games on the top two lines. Why not? The need for high end skill is reaching desperate levels. These guys aren't NHL ready, which is very against how Detroit usually deals with young players. But Detroit doesn't usually have two of their top six forwards out during their worst season start in recent team history. Just saying, it might be time to think outside the box.