I don't if anybody saw this press release before, but Hank Zetterberg is helping out with the 8th annual smoke detector collection this year...

From redwings.com:

Henrik Zetterberg and the Red Wings are asking fans to help combat household fires by bringing smoke detectors to the upcoming Red Wings home games on Saturday, Jan. 23, and Friday, Jan. 29, in coordination with the Wings’ 8th Annual Smoke Detector Collection.  Detectors will be collected when the Wings take on the Nashville Predators (Jan. 29, 7:30 p.m. EST) at Joe Louis Arena. 

This issue hit close to home yesterday evening.  My fiance's best friend lost her 19 year old younger brother, Matthew last night in a fire in Mt. Morris, MI.  Details are still being investigated, but the fire may have been caused by a faulty furnace.

Zetterberg will personally match the total number of smoke detectors donated by fans as well as provide autographed Red Wings memorabilia for prizes going to lucky fans that participate in the collection.

We're already past the LA game, but if you can, please make a donation this Saturday if you are attending the game against the Predators.

Smoke alarms should be tested at least once a month. All smoke alarms have a test button that you push to check out the entire alarm, including its sensitivity (how much smoke it takes to set it off). If the testing mechanism does not work properly, the alarm should be replaced immediately. Never use open flame devices to test an alarm.

Keep Julie's family in your thoughts and prayers.  Try and keep everything in perspective...there are indeed more important things in life.

Thanks,

-Drew

This quote was plucked from yesterday's post.

written by Twig, January 26, 2010
that really was the saddest loss of the year for me. mainly because i wasn't surprised.

Khan(!) was lazier than usual today and didn't actually post the lines.  He did say that Brad May will replace Ville Leino tonight and Kronwall will be in for...(ready?)...Derek Meech. 

Chris is probably out celebrating right now.  He doesn't much care for Derek Meech, if you haven't quite figured that out yet.

So, as far as I can tell from putting the pieces of yesterday's line in practice coupled with Mr. Khan(!)'s half-hearted attempt to tell us who's playing where tonight, here are the lines/pairings for tonight... 

Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Cleary
Bertuzzi-Filppula-Miller
Draper-Helm-Eaves
May-Abdelkader-Maltby

Lidstrom-Rafalski
Kronwall-Stuart
Lebda-Ericsson

Howard (starting)
Osgood

In other news, Lilja was actually able to take contact in practice...from a 230 lbs Mule.

“I had Mule run me yesterday in practice. He picked up all his 230 pounds and threw it at me.  My body hurt, but my head was really good. It felt real good.’’--Andreas Lilja

Don't think that Mule took it easy on him, either...

“He was seeing stars.  He needs that, needs someone to hit him to get him ready.’’--Johan Franzen

Easy, boys.

If the Miami Herald is trying to jinx Detroit, I think they're doing a good job...

Since the start of the 2006-07 campaign, the Red Wings have gone 13-1-1 against Phoenix and won all seven games held in Detroit over that time period. The Coyotes' last triumph in Joe Louis Arena came on March 7, 2006.

Detroit has been playing slump-breaker all season long.  It seems as if every time we run into a struggling team, they explode for 5 or 6 goals.  We've made back-ups like Scott Clemenson and Alex Auld look spectacular.  We've given hope to the likes of LA and Colorado by laying down in front of them.

Well now is the time to STOP.  As Voox so eliquently put it over at A2Y, the Cup is for closers.

We needed to put the kids from Los Angeles over our knee and give them a good spanking...it even looked like we were going to do so for the first 10 minutes.  Then we let the little brat hop off of the chair, run to our closet, open the lock box and blow our brains out with the gun they practiced using so many times play Halo online.

Well, not tonight.  Not tonight.  It's time to get Les Grossman on these puppy dogs. 

"What you gotta do is pull down their pants and spank their ass, you spank it."

You did it front of many of your fans in the desert.  You NEED to do it again tonight.  A win tonight could possibly pull us back within one point of LA and Nashville.  A win tonight could possibly have us three points out of 5th place.

The Western Conference keeps giving us these opportunities.  These young, upstart teams like LA and Phoenix are practically begging us to step over them in the standings and take our rightful place.  We need to STOP passing up these chances to make waves.

You want that G5?  How about TiVo?  You're going to have to earn it.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Thanks to Ty Conklin and those other a-holes that ruined my trip to Sweden, we're back in the top 8 of the Western Conference as St. Louis downed Calgary 2-0 last night.  There are two big reasons that we're sitting where we are right now, I've highlighted them in red below...

 The most obvious reason for us being in 8th place is the complete free-fall that Calgary is in right now.  They've lost six consecutive games and have only 3 points in their last 10 games played...pathetic.

The reason that we're not higher up in the standing is the sheer lack of goal scoring by Detroit.  Check out the goals-for column.  Look at who has scored less goals in the West...no one.

We knew that losing Sammy, Hossa, and Hudler would cost us a few goals.  But not even the chin waggers of the MSM could have predicted Detroit would fall so far.  It will be nice to see the impact of having a full roster.

Yesterday, when I said that we haven't had a full roster all year, I meant it.  Remember that The Namesake was hurt in training camp and wasn't back before the Mule went down.  Therefore, Detroit has STILL not iced its fully loaded roster yet this season.

So with the much celebrated return of the Kronwalled to the ice tomorrow, we finally (oh sweet Jesus, thank the Lord!) have the problem of too many defenseman, rather than the usual, who the f'ck is "Doug Janik" moments.  Coupled with the return of the bleeding brain, Lil-ja (I refuse to correctly pronounce his name since the Selanne incident), the Wings have some decisions to make.

First off all, Lebda or Meech?   To me, it is an simple question, like choosing steak over salad, brunettes over blonds, or Keystone over Bud (it is never bitter, seriously).

However, there have been hints over at KK that some seem to want Meech over Lebda, which made me immediately s#!t all over myself after reading it:

I’d much rather see Meech stay than Lebda for these reasons:
1. He’s played every bit as well as Lebda for the past month or so.
2. He’s an RFA next year, not a UFA.
3. He can play forward in a pinch.

Posted by OlderThanChelios from Grand Rapids on 01/25/10 at 02:06 PM ET

I couldn't let that go.  No freaking way.  Not with this sort of hatred of Meech.  So here we go.   A match bigger than Cage/Travolta.  I give you...

Derek Meech

VS.

Brett Lebda

Round One:  1. He’s played every bit as well as Lebda for the past month or so.

Really?  Because I've actually only noticed about one retarded play from Lebda per game.  Sure, he's the least offensive offensive defensemen ever (and that in a way, is sort of offensive...ha!) but he's only about 1/3 as a window licker as Meech.   It's a fact.  Look it up.  Science.

I was just about to show a +/- stat, but turns out that Lebda sucks almost as much as Meech. So here's another point.  According to the Yahoo Hockey God in the Sky, Meech is 5-11, 195.   Have you ever seen a 5'11'' person look smaller than Meech?  Lebda is shorter, but at least he doesn't look like the skinny kid in gym class out on the ice.

Round Two:  2. He’s an RFA next year, not a UFA.

Which is EXACTLY why we have to get rid of Meech, as soon as possible, if not sooner. Because if we don't, we have to suffer for another 365 painful, never-ending nights with Meech on the blueline, doing everything possible to not be a capable NHL'er.   If you trade (or eliminate...hmmmmm) Meech now and then refuse to resign Lebda, we can look forward to a upcoming year of sunshine, with puppies frolicking, children playing, and wonderful advances in science with allow us to reanimate Mitch Hedberg's head so he can continue to tell funny jokes.  Like this one:

My belt holds up my pants and my pants have belt loops that hold up the belt. What the fuch’s really goin on down there? Who is the real hero?

Brilliance.

Round Three: 3. He can play forward in a pinch.

Yeah, and Shaq can rap in a pinch too.  Doesn't mean that he should.

Winner:  I hear Cheli is looking for a job...(not Meech, please, I can't take much more).

Good news coming from Khan(!) today...

Check out these lines for tomorrow's game against Phoenix:

Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Cleary
Bertuzzi-Filppula-Miller (Franzen working in)
Draper-Helm-Eaves (Williams working in)
Leino-Abdelkader-Maltby (May working in)

Lidstrom-Rafalski
Kronwall-Stuart
Lebda-Ericsson
Meech-Lilja (extras)

Howard (starting)
Osgood

Holy smokes is it good to see the word "extra" by Derek Meech's name.  I can guarantee you some of those death stare's from Babcock were accompanied by the thought "I can't wait until I can sit some of these guys".

Doctors must have waited until Laraque was out of the league before declaring it safe for Kronwall to return.  Man, it will be good to see #55 out there again. 

Anybody else notice what that little stinker on Saturday did to us?

Without even playing, the slumping Calgary Flames overtook us in the standings.  Awesome.

The St. Louis Blues ride into Alberta tonight at 9:30 PM EST.  If the Blues win, we're back in 8th place.  However, the Blues will pull within 4 points of us if they do so.  Ah, who cares?  I'll take the spot in the standings at this point.  Go Blues.

Another blown lead on Saturday...another loss to a team we should have beaten.  I don't know what's keeping this team from playing with a little urgency.  This is the most frustrating season I've experienced in a very long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.

Perhaps when we get all of our injured players back, this team can finally right itself and stay in the top eight in the Western Conference where it belongs.  The return of Kronwall might mean a decrease in Ericsson giveaways that always lead to goals.  The return of Jason Williams might mean the end of Derek Meech on the 2nd power-play unit.  The return of BOTH of those players will mean the end of Derek Meech altogether.  And when the Mule finally gets back in the lineup, we'll finally have a big gun out there who can score the clutch goals.  Here's what some of our wounded soldiers had to say to the Detroit News:

"It's been a tough run.  I'm just glad to be on the ice again. Now, I know it's getting really close. So just try to be out there as much as possible and do what I can. Right now, I can do everything and it feels really good day after day. It's a good sign. It's just a matter of getting the legs back and the lungs back. A few more practices and I should be good to go."--Niklas Kronwall

"I've been skating a couple times, three times this week with Willy and Kronner and just you get out there for a spin and stickhandling and stuff like that, nothing really serious skating.  It didn't feel that good. I can't really push away."--Tomas Holmstrom

"If I can get in and play sometime next week, that would be great.  That's something that I'm striving for. Each day I go out there, I feel better. I'd just like to get a couple practices underneath me where I'm banged around a little bit and taking some one-on-ones, some three-on-twos, and just sort of testing it out that way as well. I definitely feel a lot better, I feel confident in my skating and things like that. It's just the bumps and the grinds and things, I've got to see how that will react to it."--Jason Williams

It's getting close, my friends.  A full roster is on the horizon for the first time all season.  And when they all return, we'll learn what this season was really all about...patience, or delusion.

Were we right to say that it was all the injuries?  Will the team rally at full strength, make a great play-off push and climb the standings?  Or were we all kidding ourselves all along...

When asked about forwards like The Namesake, Patrick Eaves, and Drew Miller, here is what Coach Babcock told the Detroit News:

"We wouldn't have any wins if it weren't for those guys.  It's not like our big guys have been scoring like crazy."

Babbles certainly likes to wrap his compliments in insults.

Here's what Jimmy had to say about the game last night:

"This was a fun way to get two points.  They got lucky bounces, but for the most part, I thought we controlled the game. That's the name of the game -- bounces.  Some nights you get them and some nights you don't. We're walking out of here with two points and that's the key."

Amen.  And you walked out of there in a play-off position with a chance to leapfrog the very same team you play on Saturday.  Quite the opportunity, I would say.

The hero of the day was definitely Drew Miller, who is quickly becoming a fan favorite.  He had never even attempted a shoot-out in the NHL before last night.  And he ended up winning the game for us...

"When you are coming in, you see a certain part of the net and you just read and react.  We feel we've been playing real well and not getting the results we wanted. Getting one point isn't going to get us into the playoffs.  We need to be getting two points." --Drew Miller

He probably sprouted a few more pre-mature gray hairs when his number was called to shoot.  Regardless, the kid did his job, unlike his stupid older brother...but I'm not bitter.

Time to put the Kings in the rear-view mirror tomorrow where they belong.