Wings 5, Canucks 4: Post Game Snipes...

And now for the debut of my shiny new post-game wrap-up:

• Don’t kid yourself. The Wings needed this win. I needed this win. We all needed a chance to end the night feeling good about this team.
• Ozzie looked horrible. And I’m a staunch defender of his. Giving up a goal 30 seconds into the game is miserable, and the fact that it never should have wound up in the net only made it worse.
• I can’t believe that Jimmy Howard came in and saved the day. He made several huge saves and kept the Wings in the game through some stretches. I don’t know what to make of this.
• In light of Jimmy’s two solid performances, maybe it’s time to think about giving Ozzie his yearly “mental break” now instead of waiting until the February doldrums. It would certainly send a message.
• I really, really liked what I saw from the team tonight. There were a few stretches here and there when Vancouver carried the play, but the Wings actually looked like themselves for the most part. It would’ve been easy to roll over when the Canucks scored 30 seconds in, but they battled back and notched four goals in a crazy third period.
• The boarding penalty on Brad Stuart was a joke. I pretty much agree with his assessment (via my lip reading skills) of the call.The powerplay looks to have gotten back on track. The Wings netted two goals with the man advantage in the third period. On the other hand, they also allowed two powerplay goals, so let’s not get too excited about the special teams just yet.
• I still can’t believe that Jimmy Howard played that well.
• I think it’s safe to say that this is the happiest I’ve ever been about a win in October in my life. Is this really how low I’ve sunk?
• My cable went out for five minutes which I spent running around my house trying various TVs in the hope that it was just a problem with my hook up. It wasn’t. I'm really seriously starting to think that Comcast is trying to kill me. Thankfully it happened during intermission. If it had been during game play, they would’ve been getting a(nother) very angry service call from me.
• I think this might’ve been Jonathan Ericsson’s best game of the season.
• I really feel like a guy as talented as Henrik Zetterberg could do better on a breakaway than to just rifle a shot into Luongo’s chest from the hash marks. At least try a deke or a toe drag, man.
• Here's hoping Ryan Johnson is okay after his nasty collision with the endboards. You never want to see anyone get carted off on a stretcher.
  

Cookies and Cupcakes for Tomas Holmstrom
(The player who brought me the most joy during the game gets imaginary cookies and cupcakes. It’s not necessarily the player of the game, but whoever earned my affection that night by doing something awesome. Who knows; if I don’t lose interest in this halfway through the year I may even tally it up at the end of the season.)
Homer was absolutely in vintage form tonight. Luongo is going to be having nightmares about the sight of Homer’s rear end for weeks. It kind of makes you wonder how the Wings would’ve fared with Homer healthy in the playoffs, eh? Let it never be said that I don’t love me some Demolition Man.

An Extra Stick Tap and a Gold Star for good measure go to Pavel Datsyuk
He couldn’t have picked a better time to come alive. He notched his first two goals of the season and picked up an assist on the Wings’ first goal (really though, would it have killed him to pick up the hat trick so I could have had some Arby’s?). I hope I’m not the only one who has a sneaky feeling that he’s getting set to go on a tear.

Chris Osgood gets the Golden Facepalm
(The Golden Facepalm goes to the player each game who makes me yell things like, “Oh my god, why would you do that?” “Turn in your jersey. Now.” and, “Seriously? Why?” the most times throughout the course of the game.)
As discussed above, Ozzie put up a horrendous performance. He needs to get things fixed. The Wings can’t afford to have him flounder his way through the season this time around.

What I learned:
It’s a lot more fun to write these things when the Wings win. Ok, so maybe that wasn’t exactly a revelation, but I haven’t had nearly enough happy hockey moments so far this season.