Wings vs. Canucks GP...

Since I’ve been neglecting blogging lately thanks to school-related responsibilities, I’ve decided to try a couple new things for pre- and post-game. I’m going to make every effort to put up a game-day preview post. I’ll creatively call it the Game Plan, but we’ll call it the GP for short in honor of my previous life as a Splash Trasher. In it, I’m going to list a few specific things that I’ll be watching for during the game. I’ve also got a new post-game wrap-up thing, but I can’t decide what to call it. I figure I’ve got 4 or 5 hours before I have to decide, so I’m going to buy as much time as possible for myself. I’m not going to promise that I’ll manage to scrape these together for every game, but I’m practically an Olympic medalist at procrastination, so it should be fairly regular. So, I bring you the inaugural GP:

Wings @ Canucks 10 PM Eastern

1. Darren Helm will be scratched tonight. He’s gotten off to a pretty slow start since coming back from his training camp injury, but I was just writing it off as trying to get readjusted to the tempo of the games.
2. Will tonight be the night that Pavel Datsyuk finally nets his elusive first goal?
3. The lines have been shaken up a bit, and it looks like the successful Two Finns and Jason Williams line has been broken up. What I’d really like to see is a mix up of the defensive pairings, but like Mick Jagger says…
4. Can the Wings pretty please finally pick up a road win tonight?
5. It will also be interesting to see how much of the game I can make it through. I’ve been rocking out since 5:30 AM Eastern with about 4.5 hours of sleep, so at this point I’m just hoping to keep my eyes open. I plan to be on Twitter again during the game, but if I randomly disappear halfway through, it’s pretty safe to assume that I finally dozed off and am drooling on my laptop (or that my internet has once again gone down…I’m looking at you, Comcast.).
6. Will Mikael Samuelsson finally realize that he's really Mikael Samuelsson and go back to whistling shots six feet high and wide of the net?

In other randomness, this is from Mike Stone today:

The Red Wings will probably qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but it will not be easy. They lost way too much with Hossa, Hudler, and Samuelsson's departures. Couple that with the injury to Johan Franzen and I have to wonder where will all the goals come from. Plus, the defense and goaltending is not what it was. Hard to say this, but the Wings are not one of the best teams in the league anymore.

That's great and all, but it overlooks the fact that they still are one of the best teams in the league. The losses this season haven't had the slightest thing to do with skill level. There isn't a single problem this team has that doesn't stem directly from mental mistakes and lack of effort. If the team could just find it within itself to give 100% effort for 100% of a game, things would look just fine. A ten game stretch of that, and the standings would get back to normal in a hurry. There is no doubt in my mind that this team is hands down one of the most talented teams in the league, and if they ever decide to apply themselves, all will be right with the world.