So on Center Ice tonight, I have the option of the HD feed from LA or the standard feed from FS Detroit. Which to choose? I have a plasma that doesn't upscale standard feeds...and I can't decide.
Poll time...
Ok, I can't for the life of me get a poll to show, so here's the link to it. I actually brought down the whole site trying for about 15 minutes. I'm real glad that it's back, because Drew would of killed me if I murdered his NOHS.
Because, why not? Good lord. Per Khan(!) who finally decided to do something today:
I don't even know what to say. Seriously. This has got to be how it felt to be Tiger Woods' wife Elin when she was finding about girl #12 through whatever number it is at now. It doesn't even hurt anymore. It's all just a blur. What did we do to deserve this?
And great digging Khan(!)...I could have told you this.
Wonderful. We need to step up the sacrificing the the hockey gods, neighborhood pets aren't doing it anymore...any ideas?
(Apparently this article didn't exist at first, so here it is again.)
It has long been said that the only guarantees in life are death, taxes and Corey Perry being a total douche in every aspect of life. Well, I think it is official, you can add another one to the list. Anytime there is a close call on a goal, Dennis Larue will f'k it up. Here's another one from last night from Rob Schremp, who apparently can only score absolutely beautiful goals.
If you remember, Larue was ref who made the worst call in NHL history, was told that he was wrong, ignored that, and then was somehow still allowed to ref in the NHL.
Hell, here's a thread from I think Montreal stating that Larue is the worst ref in hockey. If you Google Larue sucks, there is more results than you'd believe.
This from Mile High Hockey...
As strange as it may seem, that's the situation we're facing tonight. At least for those who can stomach it. After choking last night, the Avalanche are in danger of dropping from 5th to 8th tonight. Vancouver, Los Angeles and Nashville are all just one point behind the Avs in the standings and all three would hold win the tiebreaker over the Avs if tied. That means if any of those teams gains a point this evening, they will pass the Avalanche in the standings. If all three do that, the Avalanche will have dropped from 3rd to 8th in the span of a few days.
So, root for Carolina to beat Nashville in regulation. Root for Phoenix to do the same to Vancouver. And, if you can, root for Detroit to beat LA. If you're unable to handle this last request, we'll completely understand. Now that I think about it, maybe 8th place is better than cheering for the devil.
Conflicted much? Those poor confused little Avalanche fans. How quickly they seem to forget that last season, the 8th seed in the West was a distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
Here's what some of the readership over at MHH had to say...
If the Avs have to depend on the Red Wings for the playoffs, I’d rather they not make them.-- Jibblescribbits
I can not, will not eat green eggs and ham. I’d rather take 8th place right now and worry about climbing back up the ranks in March than root for the Red Wings. Sorry folks. Ain’t gonna happen.-- NurseBeachie
Even in uncertain times, I bathe happily in the hatred from Avs fans.
We're all happy to have Dan Cleary and Henrik Zetterberg back. The Red Wings are 
happy. The fans of the Red Wings are happy. The bloggers who write about the Red Wings are happy (even though we don't have access thanks to the Chief over at A2Y).
Out of all of the happy people, Kris Draper actually was quoted, and since he's more important to the Red Wings than you and I, the Detroit News published it. Here's what he had to say about Danny and Hank:
"We are getting two guys back who do it all, on both ends of the rink. They are tough guys to play against. They play every situation for us. So when you lose guys like that, you miss them a lot. Getting them back is huge."
So left on the injury list for Detroit:
Niklas Kronwall - knee
Jonny Ericsson - leg
Jason Williams - leg
Johan Franzen - knee
Andreas Lilja - bleeding brain
Remember when our problem was having too much talent? No? Neither do I. But the fact of the matter is that once Williams comes back, someone who has been playing decent is going to go down.
Maltby? Draper? Miller? And what about Ville Leino? Has he already become obsolete on this team after a disastrous first half? Think about this lineup and see if you don't get a warm fuzzy feeling...
Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Holmstrom
Bertuzzi-Filppula-Cleary
Williams-Helm-Eaves
Miller-Abdelkader-Draper
Lidstrom-Rafalski
Kronwall-Stuart
Lebda-Ericsson
Not touching the goalie section...it's a sensitive subject for some.
But think back to Sweden when we didn't think that Maltby should have been playing in that first game. Leino was in, Eaves was out, and Miller hadn't even arrived yet. What a change 41 games can bring.
If you ask me, Miller deserves to be in this lineup. Maltby has been playing as well as can be expected, but Miller gets my vote. I'm not quite ready to give up on Ville Leino. He's probably not willing to go back to GR, so I'm not sure what we're going to do with him.
Look at the names in red again. Is that a play-off caliber team? I'd say so.
What's that you say? I left a name off of there? Who...wha...? Oh that's right. Johan Franzen. Well I say that the lineup I provided above is good enough to get us to the post-season. And if that means resting The Mule longer than he wants to...so be it. Remember Bobby Orr? His career was cut short because he passed on missing additional games with knee problems. Know what he's missing now? All the cartilage in that problematic knee. So I say rest Franzen until he's so mad that he rips Paul MacLean's mustache from his face then watch him take down whatever team we play in the first round of the play-offs.
Unless he's not ready. Then we may have "wasted" one year of his contract. But so what? We have an entire decade more.
Finally.
For the first time in a long time, the Red Wings will have two full lines that can be counted on to score goals. Dan Cleary and Henrik Zetterberg will both lace them up tonight against the Los Angeles Kings.
According to Miss St. James of the Free Press states that Todd Bertuzzi, after basically handing Anaheim the win on 
Tuesday, will be moved to the second line with Val and Dan. Hank will be reunited with the Flying Circus. Hmmm...where did I see that idea before?
So if I have this right, tonight's lineup should be as follows...
Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Holmstrom
Bertuzzi-Filppula-Cleary
Draper-Helm-Eaves
Miller-Abdelkader-Maltby
Lidstrom-Rafalski
Meech-Stuart
Lebda-Janik
(updated 7:45 AM)
Osgood (starting)
Howard (starting)
That roster is looking a little more attractive. And a good thing too. Here's what the standings look like as of this morning...
Five points out of a play-off spot means we're going to have to string some wins together in order to crack the top eight again. So thanks to Ritola for filling in for a while. But it's time to let the big boys take it from here.
10:30 PM start times are unconscionable. So it's 7:30 for those who live in Anaheim...we all have to suffer? Also, the news from our beat writers is slow. Okay, so it's always slow going from our writers, but when the team is on the left coast, it's nearly non-existent.
At least the Mule is back on the ice practicing for the first time. Chris McCosky provided us with this from detnews.com...
"I am just trying to do more stuff. I did some stopping and turning. It felt pretty good. It's just about how I feel every day. It's still up and down with how much soreness there is, so I have to be careful." --Johan Franzen
All of the injured Detroit players aside from Kronwall participated in practice today (I don't know if that includes Lilja). Williams skated in warm-ups. Cleary and Zetterberg ran full practices, though it seems that Danny-boy is feeling a lot better than Hank, who is still experiencing some soreness.
Ericsson continues to push himself in practice. Though no date is set for his return, I couldn't rob you of this quote from Babcock when asked about the Big Rig:
"Jonny doesn't think he's (ready) any time soon? He's just out here shopping, looking for a house on the beach or something?"
I can't wait to start getting more players back. The Wings have two more late games ahead of them (LA on Thursday, SJ on Saturday) before having to stop in New York to face the Islanders to wrap up this road trip.
That's five games in 3 different time zones in ten days...thank you, Mr. Schedule Maker.
Via Khan(!) this morning following last night's stinker...
“It was a disappointing effort on our part. We weren’t prepared to play, for whatever reason. … It was a bad game for our team. That was our worst game in a while. It’s very disappointing. We let ourselves down here today. I don’t think you can ever really find out how good you can be unless you play as hard as you’re capable of playing. We didn’t do that tonight.’’ --Mike Babcock
And that's all I have to say about that right now.
I think that the Chief over at A2Y finally poked Khan(!) enough to get him out of his 
slumber. Here's your lines for tonight's game against the Ducks...
Bertuzzi-Datsyuk-Holmstrom
Ritola-Filppula-Miller
Draper-Helm-Eaves
May-Abdelkader-Maltby
Lidstrom-Rafalski
Meech-Stuart
Lebda-Janik
Howard (starting)
Osgood
So it looks like we might be getting both Zetterberg and Cleary back together on Thursday. What to do with Filppula then? We'll get to that. I think Bertuzzi-Filppula-Cleary, but we'll see.
And I hope that Leino understands that he didn't play bad against Phoenix. I don't think anyone views this as punishment. May is playing because we're playing the Ducks. Brad May needs to play when we take on Anaheim. That is, unless Ville won the Finnish Golden Gloves secretly. Even then I'm not sure he plays.
It's Duck season tonight.
While we sit around wondering what the fate of our own superstar is going to be, Miss St. James of the Free Press is finding out the low-down of the competition...
“I felt pretty good, but we’ll see how the day progresses. Everything is feeling a little bit better, but it’s a matter of how it reacts this afternoon as to whether I can go tonight." --Ryan Getzlaf
"Getslapped" has been sidelined for the past 4 games after cutting himself with his own skate. Sounds more emo that frat-boy, doesn't it?
The Ducks, mired in 13th place in the West are already without Teemu Selanne, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if if #15 for Anaheim takes to the ice tonight.
