Weekly Wrap-Up Volume Seven...

Caption Mondays: This week's winner is a very dear friend of mine, Nidhilicious.

But my lips hurt real bad!

Trivia Tuesdays: Clark and Andy sorted out the mess I made this week. I failed to specify whether or not to count overtime losses in my question (I wasn't intending to). Somewhere, my School of Ed professors are banging their heads against hard objects.

This week's question: Against which team do the Wings have the fewest regular season losses?

The Answer: The Wings have the fewest regular season losses against the Panthers. Florida has only beaten them twice in regulation. However, the Panthers have beaten the Wings twice in overtime. If you add the overtime losses to the regulation losses, they're in a tie with the Thrashers, who have beaten the Wings four times in regulation.

Red Wings 1, Thrashers 5: Post Game Snipes...

• The Wings looked awful tonight. They never even got going in the third period. It wasn't hard to predict that their habit of starting slowly and sleepwalking through large portions of games was going to catch up to them eventually.
• There were a ridiculous amount of turnovers tonight. Everybody was making them in every area of the ice.
• The blue stanchions in Atlanta annoy me.
• Joey MacDonald played the third period and wasn't awful. That's somewhat reassuring in a strange way.
• Zetterberg made some nice plays with the puck, particularly late in the game, but to no avail.

Hero: Todd Bertuzzi
He scored the Wings' only goal of the game. It got them back into the game after falling down 0-2 at the beginning. Sadly, it was only a glimmer of hope.

Villain: Andrew Ladd
He scored the killer shorthanded goal that ended up being the game-winner.

Final Thought:
I think the Wings were already thinking ahead to Thanksgiving. Not a good night, but it's not the end of the world either.

Red Wings vs. Thrashers GP...

Red Wings: 13-3-2

Thrashers: 9-9-3

Red Wing Zen:

Jiri Hudler

1-4-5, +/- -5, 6 PIM

Plus a special bonus picture:

Point and Laugh:

Zach Bogosian

1-2-3, +/- -8, 12 PIM

Go East, Young Men...

In an effort to avoid the million things that I’m supposed to be doing, I decided to play around with the standings differential between the Eastern and Western Conferences. We’ve long maintained that the Wings would’ve been even more dominant if they’d been able to cakewalk through the East for all these years. These are the numbers that I came up with for so far this season (through Sunday):

The 15 Western Conference teams have a total of 730 points. The 15 teams in the East? Merely 683. I was so surprised by the differential that I double checked my addition. The current playoff teams in the West have a total of 438 points, while the Eastern teams only have 409. The eighth place team in the West has 51 points, but the eighth place team in the East has 45. The Wings’ 48 points would place them 6th in the Eastern conference, because they have a game in hand on the Senators who also have 48 points.

I came up with two possible explanations for the difference in numbers: 1. The teams in the West have played more overtime “three-point” games or 2. The Western Conference teams have been winning more of their games against the East.

The teams in the West have accumulated a total of 78 overtime losses, 61 of which have come against in-conference opponents. On the other hand Eastern teams have 81 overtime losses, with 65 of them coming against other teams in the East. Teams in the Eastern Conference have actually played more three-point games than teams in the West have.

Looking at the Western Conference’s cumulative record against the East gives pretty good support to explanation #2. The West is 84-44-17 in games against Eastern teams. The East is only 61-68-16. They’re not even .500 against the West this season. In fact, only three Western Conference teams are below .500 against teams from the East. Those three teams are St. Louis, Edmonton, and Anaheim, who currently occupy three of the bottom four spots in the West. There are only six Eastern Conference teams who have winning records against the West: Pittsburgh, Boston, Buffalo, Atlanta, Washington, and Florida. Not surprisingly, that group of teams accounts for positions 2-5 in the standings, with only Atlanta and Florida being the outliers.

That just goes to show you that when we call it the Leastern Conference, we really mean it. Must be nice, eh?

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!

Wings vs. Thrashers GP...

Wings vs. Thrashers @7:30

1. Well Babcock’s announced his slightly wacky and yet oddly logical plan for the defensive rotation. Somehow, through rotation, line-juggling, and possibly the use of a Time Turner from Harry Potter, he’s going to make the six-man defensive lineup resemble an eight-man lineup. I kind of get it, and I’m all about anything that prevents a third pairing of Lebda and Meech from taking the ice, so I’m willing to give it a shot. Will anyone (on the ice or otherwise) have any clue what’s going on by the end of the game?
2. Babs is also going with Jimmy Howard in net tonight, which worries me much less than I would’ve imagined it would a couple of months ago. Can he keep up his strong play?
3. I asked the same thing last game; it still hasn’t been answered, so I’ll go with it again: Where have all the goals gone? After going on a tear of 19 goals in 3 games, the offense has absolutely dried up. I know the offense has been depleted, but except for the loss of Kronwall, the lineup that’s been on the ice for the last few games is not markedly different from the one that was lighting it up.
4. Part of the offensive stall has been due to the issues with the powerplay. The first unit has been generating some buzz, but if they can’t score, that leaves a second unit of Cleary, Bertuzzi, and Leino. Now, I like Cleary a lot, but there’s a reason we call him Charlie Buckets. He’s the kind of guy who has an uncanny ability to take advantage of the strengths of his linemates. On this unit, there just isn’t a whole lot for him to work with. At this point, I would rather see the third line get powerplay time over this bunch. Are we really going to have to suffer through a one-unit powerplay interminably? And I'm not even willing to discuss the PK...
5. Over the summer I made it very clear that I was unhappy with Bertuzzi’s signing. However, I resolved to give him a chance. I would say that a quarter of the season counts as a fair chance. So far he has done absolutely nothing to impress me. So what fine work does he have in store for us tonight?

2009-2010 Player Profiles: Jason Williams...

OK, it’s that time of year. Hockey’s so close that you can almost taste it. By my count, there are 2 days remaining before the Wings kick off their season in Sweden (which is still entirely too many, but at least we can see the light at the end of the tunnel). In order to pass the time, I’ll be posting a player profile every day until then (in alphabetical order, because I’m one of those people). I want to make it very clear that these are not predictions, because I do not, under any circumstance, make predictions. They’re simply my thoughts on each player’s performances last season, and my hopes and expectations for them this time around. Today’s subject:

Jason Williams


2008-2009 Regular Season: 80 GP, 19-28-47, +/- -4, 24 PIM
2009 Playoffs: 4 GP, 0-1-1, +/- -2, 2 PIM

Season Highlight: Probably getting traded from Atlanta to a real live playoff team. I guess.
Season Lowlight: Getting swept in the first round by the Big Red Machine.

Williams split time between the Thrashers and the Blue Jackets last season. His production improved once he arrived in Columbus, which I’m going to go ahead and attribute to the fact that the BJs were a playoff team and Atlanta…not so much. His playoff numbers were dismal, but you have to take into account the fact that he was up against the Wings. Beyond that, I can’t really offer a lot of insight into the kind of season he had.

I’m on the record as being strongly against his signing this summer. But, as the wise Mick Jagger once said, “You can’t always get what you want.” Babcock has Williams slotted in to replace Mikael Samuelsson on the point on the powerplay, and though that makes me nervous, I’m willing to give it a shot. It’s a role that Williams has filled before, and it’s not like Sammy wasn’t turnover prone as well. I’m starting to feel a whole lo better about his signing after watching his performance on Sunday. He really did look good, and he made a few good plays on the powerplay. In my tendency to hold grudges, I often overlook the fact that he posted 58 points one year with the Wings in his previous stint, which is perfectly respectable. The beauty of the Wings’ situation (and what I believe will be their saving grace) is the fact that none of the new signees or guys promoted from Grand Rapids will be asked to put up those kind of numbers. The team hasn’t put all of its eggs in one basket in terms of finding someone to replace Hossa, Hudler, and Samuelsson. Williams and the like are simply expected to go out and play the Wings’ game. And from past experience, that style, defensively focused though it is, tends to lend itself to offense.

Some folks made a big deal about Williams saying that he wanted to stay in Columbus, but I really don’t have a problem with that (except that for the life of me, I can’t figure out why someone would want to live in such close proximity to Ohio State, but that’s another issue altogether). As long as he comes in, works hard, and refrains from whining, I’ll be okay. The Wings need him to fill the role that he’s signed for, and I think he understands what his job is here. Pointwise, I’d look for numbers about the same or slightly higher than he put up last year. I’m told that his line with Filppula and Leino has looked good together so far, and sharing ice time with those two guys, there’s no excuse to not have a decent year.

What he needs to do to make me happy: Not play his ipod.