Thursday, November 26, 2009

Wings 0, Thrashers 2: Post Game Snipes...

  • I’m so glad that I only paid $15 to see this game. The Wings looked terrible, the crowd was pathetically quiet for most of the night, and the highlight of my night was watching Ozzie and Draper goof around in the net during warmups.
  • Although, I have to admit that getting to go out on the ice as part of the turkey bowling thing was pretty cool…even though I looked like an idiot. If you were one of the people who I’m sure was laughing at me, I just want you to know that I had a strategy. It just failed miserably. But our team still won and I’ve got a pair of free tickets to Monday’s game, so the joke’s on you. Also, I had the pleasure of walking around the Joe while my brother carried a frozen turkey for the next two hours. Amazing photographs obviously ensued.
  • We went down right behind the Wings’ net to watch warmups and I’m reasonably certain that Justin Abdelkader was trying to kill me. He personally fired at least half a dozen shots that hit the glass directly in front of my face. My little sister was not amused by the whole firing squad effect. If you’ve never watched warmups from that spot before, you’re missing out. It will give you a whole new appreciation for the work that goalies do.
  • The News’ recap of the game began with this paragraph:
    It might be time to call in a priest to bless the sticks, or maybe a witch doctor to remove the curse. Because no matter how hard the Red Wings grind, no matter how many shots and chances they create, the puck will not go into the net for them.
    I’ve got a better idea. The team could just bother showing up to play hockey games from time to time. There's a pretty reasonable chance that that would help.
  • Todd Bertuzzi is officially a waste of ice time. And bench space. And cap space (although that’s less of an issue at this particular moment).
  • Also from the News’ recap was this beauty:
    In the third, Bertuzzi broke up a play and went into the Thrashers' zone on a 2-on-1. Yet, he tripped before he could make a play. There was nobody near him, he simply lost an edge -- can you say snakebit?
    I’m not sure ‘snakebit’ is the right word (or the correct grammar for that matter). “Snakebitten” is something you say about a guy who’s having rough couple of weeks on the scoresheet. When you’re having a rough five years, well, then you have to consider the possibility that you just suck.
  • Datsyuk tried that thing he does where he flips the puck over the back of the net. One of these times it’s going to work and I think my brain is going to explode from the sheer awesomeness of it.
  • Brett Lebda and Brad Stuart should probably never share ice time again. I don’t know what their deal was, but whenever I noticed them paired together bad things were happening.
  • My pictures are up on photobucket.
GP Answers:
1. The defense wasn’t the only thing Babs was mixing up. The forward lines got put through the scrambler too. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to help.
2. Howard was fine. He gave them a chance to win and they didn’t take it. To think that going into this season my biggest worry was the goaltending. I’m not saying it’s been stellar, but the guys between the pipes are certainly not the reason the Wings have been losing.
3. Still no answer for this one. Someone needs the team’s ability to score goals on a milk carton or something.
4. Same old, same old on the powerplay. I guess the answer’s ‘yes’ for this one.
5. Please refer to the second passage that I’ve quoted from the News above. Yes, that really did happen. And yes, it did look every bit as pathetic in person as it did on TV.

Cookies and Cupcakes for Jimmy Howard
Because nobody else deserves any.

Todd Bertuzzi gets the Golden Facepalm
Once again, please refer to the passage from the News quoted above. This one is a no-brainer.

What I learned:
That carrying a turkey around Joe Louis Arena can actually be ridiculously fun. Especially if your little brother holds it on his head to mock the people wearing the turkey hats (yeah, people actually bought those).

PS. Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

2 comments:

  1. Congrats on getting the opportunity to turkey bowl! I really really wanted to, but alas, my group was running behind and barely made it in time for warm-ups. Yes, this is what I call being late at The Joe. This may sound like a really stupid question, but being that this year is the first I've been able to get to some games, but how do you get down to rink-side to watch the warm-ups? I always thought you had to cough up a ton of cash for lower bowl tix to get to do that. Bertuzzi sucked. In the section where I was sitting, people actually BOOed him at that play. I may have been one of them. In a night where it got increasingly hard to be optimistic about the Wings as the game wore on, I was actually embarrassed to see him represent our team. Howie played solidly, and while I was glad to see the Flying Circus reunited, either their timing was off or they just looked desperate. I'm tired of watching our team get beat to the puck every shift. I'm tired of hearing "we got 40 shots on goal, that's not lack of effort." It is when more than half of those shots come from the perimeter from difficult angles. We need people to be in the slot, to catch rebounds. We need to NEVER see Stuart & Lebda together again. I actually liked Ericsson & Lidstrom. We need to backcheck when our opponents have the puck in our zone instead of just staring at them as they set up a cycle in front of our net. If they need to bless something, bless Franzen's knee. We need his presence as a power forward BADLY. Watching Kozlov play against us made me realize something: He's the last of the Russian Five playing in the NHL. Somehow that made me really sad...until he scored that goal on us. Sorry for this novel of a comment, but one last thing. After the game, when I didn't think things could possibly make my mood more foul, I found out that Hossa got his first goal for Chicago on his first game back...shorthanded. I don't know if you're a Hossa-hater or not, but I can't be the only Wings fan wondering last night: What If???

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  2. You can just walk down there to watch warmups. Nobody cares when it's that early.

    And the thing about Kozlov being the last of the Russian Five left in the NHL hadn't occurred to me before. That kind of makes me nostalgic for the old days haha.

    As far as Hossa goes, I liked him when he was here and I was annoyed that he chose Chicago, but I think that signing him would've been terrible for the Wings. Especially in light of all of the injuries. The Wings basically got three bodies for the price of one, and the way things have been going they need as many guys as they can get just to fill up the lineup every night.

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