Little Brother Comes to Town...

Remember back in the playoffs last season when I compared Chicago to the Wings’ little brother? Well, over the summer little brother went through a huge growth spurt, and he’s looking a whole lot scarier now, although it would seem that he hasn’t gotten a whole lot smarter. I absolutely believe that the Hawks are going to give the Wings a run for their money in the Central this season, but I haven't bought into the whole changing of the guard thing quite yet. Chicago still has a long way to go before they're ready to do anything meaningful, as evidenced by their oftentimes embarrassing elimination by the Wings in the Western Conference Finals last season.

In other news, the Wings open the Joe tonight, and I’m choosing to ignore the fact that the previous two games occurred. It would be super fantastic if the Wings could see fit to eke out a win. Especially since I’ll be missing The Office wedding episode. Oh how I miss my DVR. What I’m looking for from them today:

--Kill off more than 50% of the penalties that they take. 2 for 5 just isn’t going to cut it.
--Brett Lebda Derek Meech to play some defense.
--Brad Stuart to not screen our goalie or deflect shots past him.
--The team to play a whole 60 minutes of hockey (Lofty expectations, I know).
--Let’s try to hold the goals against to three or fewer. That’s scientifically proven to increase your chances of winning.
-- 2 points.

Mostly, I just want to celebrate a meaningful victory for the first time in what feels like forever. It'd also be nice to put the Blackhawks back in their place and show them that the Wings are still in charge of the division. Plus, there's the chance that it would give us a brief respite from all of those "end of an era" articles that people seem to be tripping over themselves to write these days. The bottom line is that I need a rollicking good time to take my mind off of the Tigers' loss on Tuesday. I'm still not prepared to discuss that.