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.

It was rumored that Zetterberg might return to the lineup tonight against the Anaheim Ducks.  Zetterberg said yesterday that he would see how his injured shoulder felt after this morning's skate.

Once again, the line has gone dead from our beat writers.  Did the Wings even skate this morning?  I know there's a time difference, but it's 11 o'clocl in Phoenix right now, so the skate should be over.

Personally, I wouldn't mind Zata taking a couple more days to let that shoulder heal.  Having separated a shoulder playing hockey myself a few years ago, I know how painful it can be to get hit before you're truly ready.  Cleary already ruled himself out for tonight's game and aims for a Thursday return against the Kings.

I know we need all the points that we can get, but do you really want guys with injuries playing against the Ducks?  They aren't the goons they once were, but there's still plenty of dirt on that squad to have me feel a little uneasy about a premature return for our future captain.

I'll let you know if I get confirmation.  Until then; stay tuned.

Hey gang.  I'm back to business as usual.  I hope that everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday season and I do want to apologize again for my lack of posting during my vacation.  I think that Chris did a good job of keeping you folks entertained during my absence.  Hopefully, not too many of you have been scared away.

For those of you who care, my vacation in Arizona went splendidly.  I ate a ton (had to get a membership at a local gym to try and keep the pounds off), I got engaged on New Year's Eve, and I had the pleasure of meeting up with Sullyosis (frequent Red Wings blog commentator/heck of a nice guy) and Jessie from Bingo Bango at Saturday's spanking of the Phoenix Coyotes.  Made it home safe and sound last night and now I'm back to work.

Hopefully, the Red Wings will also get back to business.  Here are the standings as of this morning...

We've still got a lot of work to do, boys.  The good news: it's being reported that by the end of the month, only Franzen and Lilja will remain on our laundry list of injuries.  The month of January should be a happy one with the return of Zetterberg, Cleary, Kronwall, Williams, and Ericsson.

The bad news is that it appears that Chris Osgood is starting to get a little whiney about his lack of playing.  I suppose it was only a matter of time before the waiting for "STFU Ozzie" would turn into us saying "STFU, Ozzie" (see what I did there with the comma?)  Howie's the man right now.

On another note, on my nice, cold, slippery drive in to work this morning I heard someone on NHL Home Ice say the following (which I am paraphrasing from memory):

"We have enough talent on this team that when certain players don't perform, we have others who can step in and cover for them"--Patrick Kane

Sounds like the Red Wings of last year doesn't it?  Enjoy it while it lasts, Chicago.  The 'Hawks are currently up 13 freaking points on us with Detroit only having one game in hand.  Hopefully, the soldiers we have returning to the front line will help drive this run.  But like I said before, we've still got a lot of work to do.

What do you write about when there really isn't anything going on in the Wings world that you have the knowledge to write about?  (The WJC are awesome, but it'd be like me writing about the World Series...complete BS.)  So I using two of the oldest tricks in the book.  Stealing from both a prior, overused idea for a list and from someone else...so you know it is time for mid-season grades.

First, go check out Gorilla Crouch, who has graded the forwards (and I will show his grade here compared to my grade) and compared them to a Detroit Landmark.  Draper and Hot and Ready Pizza is greatness. Get over there and read it.

Here we go (GC's grade is first, then mine underlined.)

Drew has informed me that the Nightmare has made the final the last round of the NHL Arena Blog-off.  So apparently that's a good thing (we will represent the Wings in some way on some website...and that is all I know), so I'm asking if you guys like the blog, click here to vote for NOHS.  The other contenders are great as well, so no harm either way.

Multiple updates should resume tomorrow, as Drew gets back from post-apocalyptic United States (aka Arizona).

It isn't very often you get a night-of recap here at NOHS (due to the fact that Drew goes to almost every game and meets his quota of at least three 24oz Molson XXX and I'm way too ADD past the hour of 3 PM), but damn, that was a fun game to watch.   Detroit played fairly well, but most notably took advantage of their chances (I like that...less blue balls for all) and when they fell apart, Jimmah was there in the net, shutting down almost everything Bettman's Coyotes could fire at him.  It is two huge points in the standings which puts them 3 points out of 8th place with a game in hand.  In addition, they are only six points out of fourth place with two games at hand.

By the way, the Wings would find themselves in 6th place if they played in the lessor conference out East.

Random Thoughts:

• Where would we be this year without the team chipmunk, Tomas Holmstrom?  15 goals for the Swede, still leading the team.  By the way, how the hell doesn't Homer have a real nickname?  Or did I miss it?  So much potential...
  
  
• I didn't realize how injured the team was (well I did, but this put it in persective) until Val came back a few games ago and made Miller and Abby look like the fourth liners that they should be right now.  It still kills me a little to think that our #2 powerplay is Abby, Ritola, Miller/Eaves, with Meech and Lebda on the back end.  That would struggle to be powerplay in Midget hockey, let alone the Wings.  (Remember #2 last year?  Franzen, Hossa, Hudler, Kronwall, Sammy...ok, forget about Sammy, but still.)
  
  
• Turns out Anders Eriksson is NOT dead.   He's literally been on 13 different teams in the past decade and somehow is sticking around.   Loved how he said he was taking it easy until he got the call from PHX and told them it'd be a few weeks before he was in shape.  Guess that fatass nickname was valid.
  
  
• Jimmy Howard is not only beginning to look like the team starter for the regular season AND playoffs, he's also starting to be a serious contender for the Calder Trophy.   Has there been another rookie this year that has meant as much to their team as Jimmah has to the Wings?  Right now, if we have regular season Osgood instead of Jimmah, we aren't waiting to get healthy to make a run for it, we are in contention for the lottery pick.
  
  
• Random, watching the Edmonton game and boy, do they ever need a goaltender named the Bulin Wall to return. 
  
  
• Speaking of Osgood, he's not too happy about sitting.  He had an interesting response to Babcock saying that he is going to play whichever goalie is playing better.   Per an interview with digger Chris McCosky (via A2Y):
  
  

  "I don't think I have to prove that. I know how to play, I just have to play -- that's all there is to it. It's not a matter of earning an opportunity. You have to get into some games and get into a groove and then I can play like I can. It's not that I don't know how to do it. "But if you don't play, it's impossible to get to that point. I'm a goalie,

OK, and I've been playing for 20-some years since Juniors. What I say (about goaltending) is closer to the facts than what he (Babcock) would say."

And:

"The games that I've played, I don't think I've played badly. I feel like I've played pretty good. The third goal in Chicago was a bad goal, but I played real good in the third period.  "I don't feel like I should not be playing."

• First off Osgood, come on man, you aren't Chris Pronger.  It is "real well," not "real good."  
  
  And more importantly, the main point.  I'm a stupid goalie as well and can sympathize with you a bit.  I have a story that is a little like yours.  In college, I was the starter for my first 3 years.  Going into my last year, a new guy comes in and gets most of the starts right out of the bat.   The season prior, I was named to the all-region team and thought my place was secure as the number one guy.  It clearly wasn't and I was pissed. The other goalie was good, but I never felt I lost the spot and didn't know why I wasn't playing.   I barley got any games at first and when I did, I was rusty and played, at best, average.   I struggled for the entire first half the season.  Finally, over the X-mas break, I finally got over myself.  I realized that no matter if I deserved more of a shot or not, I needed to take advantage of whatever games I got.  I pulled it together, took advantage of a couple chances and got my way back into the net, enough to be the starter for the second half of the season again and made it back on the all-region team.  (Damn, I miss college...well I guess I am still in college: round 3, but you know.)
  
  What does this have to do with you Osgood?  Get over yourself, soon.  You've been a good goaltender in the playoffs for the Wings, but that's all the past.  And you did earn something with your past play.  You earned a chance to start the year as the #1.  But it wasn't that Babcock magically or unfairly took it away from you.  You lost that spot to a goalie that has simply done one thing and has done that one thing consistently.  That one thing is this: he's completely and utterly outplayed you on a nightly basis. 
  
  But you aren't all wrong.  You aren't far off that you have played pretty good (well compared to last year's reg. season).  But that won't cut it.   We need great now and if you can't provide it, then you can sit on the bench.  And if you don't realize this, then that is where you will stay.  And with that attitude, that is where you should stay too.  
  
  Now I'm always thought Jimmah was a talented goaltender, but he will falter eventually and you will get a game or two.  So you'll get your chance.  Who knows, maybe it is this year that we see what Osgood really has once he does.  
• I was planning a post to call out Bertuzzi haters everywhere, but this will do.   He's simply been great over the past month.  Datsuyk's goal was almost entirely off his hard work in offensive zone.   He has 11 points in the past ten games, and that includes three games where the Wings as a whole were shutout.  So you haters, repent now or Bert will go all Steve Moore on you...
• Oh yeah, lately, Datsyuk has been also been giving a big "F' You" to everyone who was calling him out for having an off year.  I'd still rather have Datysuk than Crosby any day of the week.  Snipe Snipe bitches.
• It should be illegal how fast Helm is. 

The Triple Nightmare Deke on Helm Street Red Wing Players of the Game:

1. "Jimmah" Howard - Simply outstanding.  Made at least 4 saves that should have been goals.  This kind of performance will help my fantasy team out tremendously.
2. Nick Lidstrom - He's heating up.  Another two point night which makes for six points the past three games.   Heading back on track for #7?  Just saying...
3. Bertuzzi/Datsyuk/Homer -  Seriously, all three of them should have stars, they all had great games.  So they will.  Report me, I dare you.