BlueMonk

Now that the Lions, Pistons, Tigers and Red Wings all fail to sell out games... Can we finally acknowledge that the economy in Michigan is to blame for the attendance woes? Or should we continue to pretend that Michiganders have spontaneously lost interest in all the sports? People who live here and understand what's going on have never wavered on this point, but the Wings were hit first and the media cited the continued draw at other Detroit pro arenas as some sort of evidence that... what, exactly? People here don't like hockey anymore? I don't know. It was never clear to me what they were trying to say, other than to bash the fan base and try to give the "Hockeytown" mantle to some other city. But now that it's trickled down to all the teams, that angle doesn't fly anymore. People don't have jobs, don't have disposable income like they used to or simply don't live here anymore. That's the f**king reason the seats aren't all filled. Not just at The Joe, but in all the arenas. The Tigers couldn't sell out divisional games in the final week of a pennant race, for cripes' sake. IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID. Duh.

Obviously a ploy to motivate the team. Hopefully, it works. They looked sharp last night, that's for sure.

Sounds like it's not too serious. http://www.freep.com/article/20091101/SPOR...eye-checked-out

CBC just reported May will not travel with the team, he'll stay over in Calgary tonight. Man, the replay of that injury looked really bad. They're confirming it's around the eye area but not saying anything more than that.

I'm really happy the Red Wings won this game. And that they won it playing the way they did. Hope May is okay. This injury sh** is getting tired.

The Pens look almost as unstoppable as the Sharks did this time last year.

Finally! A road win! Jimmy Howard came up big at the end there. The Red Wings showed a lot of resiliency coming back again and again in this one. Nicely done.

Willy! Okay, anyone want to take bets on who will take the (inevitable) Wings penalty that's upcoming?

In that instance, if a dive is called, the player who initiated the hit should be granted a freebie where he gets to inflict the actual amount of pain the diver's body language suggests. So, in this case, the Detroit player could take the Vancouver player and shove his head into the glass to create an injury that matched the reaction.

Western Canada officiating is usually like this, but the Wings got some breaks earlier, too. Kronner with a clear interference a little earlier in the 3rd and they let it go.

Good lord.

The officials reversing the usual tendency to put the whistles away in the 3rd. Tonight, they put them away early and now they're blowing everything late in the game.

Pavel!

Awful PK. Zetterberg and Rafalski have sucked tonight on the defensive end. What a terrible way to give that goal back.

It may not seem like it right now, but it will turn around eventually and those will start to go in. Not that it hasn't been said 1,000 times, but Filppula needs some kind of pavlovian response training to shoot the puck. Maybe wire him up to some high voltage and shock him when he holds on to it for too long.

As annoying as the loss yesterday was, this is where I sit right now, too. Opening the season with the schedule they've had and the farce in Sweden makes it difficult to take too much from these early games. If the team is still struggling after 20 games I'll begin to take it seriously. I will say this, though: Osgood can't be an .880 save percentage guy again this season if the Red Wings want to get home ice in the first round of the playoffs. This team isn't as deep as it was last year and it won't be able to survive bad goaltending through the 82 game grind again. Ty Conklin isn't here to pick up the slack and Jimmy Howard hasn't proven that he can be an NHL goalie yet, so Ozzie needs to be better.

Well, at least they improved their PK stats with a kill.

Way to get it back, boys!

I can't say the PK looks any better this year. The 5 on 5 defense has been better since they got back from Sweden, but the PK still looks awful.

This is a brutal start for the Wings. They've been hemmed in all period so far and haven't won a single race to a loose puck.

Great. Now we'll get a flood of faithful Blues posters here to talk about the loss and clog up the LGW bandwidth.

The commitment to defense was nothing like the 2009 team; the effort tonight was pure 2008. I, for one, am relieved to see it. A lot is being made of the loss of scoring this year, but a team has to play defense like that to be a serious contender regardless.

Jesus Friggin' Christmas, FINALLY. Hilarious post on hockeyfights.com about the Babcock quote: Is this from The Onion? Hehehehe.

Yes, the Blues were the better team and deserved to win both games. Now try showing up after a loss some time.

When does the regular season start?