50% of the time, flippys (flippies?) work every time.  That’s the joke I had with a defenseman of mine in college.   He was awesome at flipping the puck out of the zone.  Except when he wasn’t.  So I knew when he went back to the corner, get ready, because the puck is either going to end up waaayyy out of the zone, or right on the stick of an opponent resulting in a 2-0 for the other guys. 

Of course, my buddy wasn’t in the NHL like Brendan Smith is.   Smith should know better.

I had great hopes for Smith this year.  To me, he was going to be a lock for the Calder. Lidstrom replacement – or as close as one could get to being one.  But unfortunately, he’s been a rookie in every respect. Some bright spots, but mostly a whole bunch of mistakes and stupid plays. 

And things aren’t going well for him lately.   He’s finished -1 in each of the past four games and has a whopping 4 points on the year, all of which are assists.   Yesterday he was on the ice for two goals again.   Yeah, one he was being sat on in the crease, but still – you know who was never sat on in the crease?  Nick Lidstrom.  And, of course, the critical flippy that almost cost the Wings the game.  Whether it be by strength or smarts, he’s been outclassed the last few games and likely just needs a rest and a regroup session to calm down and play like the star we know he can be. 

Hit the jump for what I think we should do with Smith: 

You never want the 3-0 goal to be the GWG, but that's what happened to the Wings tonight. Still, good to be on the winning side of a clusterfrack than on the losing end. Tonight's recap will be a mixed bag of praise for some and scorn for others.

More after the jump:

Unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected news out of Detroit today. Todd Bertuzzi is going to hang up the blades despite earlier reports that he was getting closer to returning. In a way this isn’t terrible because guys like Nyquist and Tatar will be further up on the depth chart, but as a fan of Bert, this sucks.

More after the jump:

Not sure why NBC thought it would be a good idea to broadcast some Hawks fan playing NHL 13 on rookie skill level yesterday. Amazing graphics, though, eh? People in the CGI crowd actually looked like they were going to kill themselves.

Reality after the jump:

So just over a week ago I left the desert, and the world of hockey fandom, briefly to visit the Pacific Northwest. Brother was graduating college, which for me was probably my own personal peak of achievement so I was happy to share his with him. Very proud of the guy and I feel I need not mention I watched zero hockey whilst using him as a middle man to treat myself to amazing food and music. What did I miss? Only two of Jimmy Howard’s more dominant performances. Justin Abdelkader with a hat trick (he now has more regular season career hat tricks than Pavel Datsyuk. Ouch). Drew Miller moved up to the Zetterberg line…curious. A total meltdown by the Anaheim Ducks featuring this little .GIF that made my twitter-following-of-the-action so worth it.

Hey, that's us! Highly sought after defenseman Danny DeKeyser has signed with the Red Wings. That whole “Noon decision” thing? Well, he may have decided at noon, but they kept a lid on it until closer to 5 ET. This is great news and we deserve to celebrate, but this signing is a bigger benefit to our future than our present situation. Still, Ken Holland gets to live another day.

There aren’t any details out there right now, but I wanted to make sure you knew the good news.

LGRW

That was a really boring game to watch. It didn’t seem to me that Detroit had very many quality scoring chances last night. Most of their shots came from the boards with no screen in front. Only one PP the whole game and it was ours. Very uneventful game.

More after the jump:

Iginla is a Penguin.  So is Morrow and Murray.  The Pens needed toughness and grit and added that, plus leadership and scoring, only giving up a draft picks and mediocre prospects in return.

Impressive, to say the least.  This means two things.

First, the Pens have to be favorites to win the Cup this year and that makes little Gary have a halfie.

Second, even if this doesn’t work out, Shero has clearly surpassed Holland as the best GM in the league.

I don’t think the Wings should mortgage their future to win now.  But changes have to be made. Something.  Anything.

Hit the jump for more. 

Nyquist had an interesting week, didn't he? A goal, a demotion, a promotion, a scratch and so on. But I bet you don't know how it all went down, do you? Aside from the Red Wings celebrating realignment, take a look at a typical day in the life of Gustav Nyquist.

Satire after the jump: