Heroes of Hockeytown

What is this ******* nonsense? f*** you Fraser.

Uuuuughhhhh

Indeed.

Close one again. 'Stein might be heating up here.

Oooooooh Pavel.. so close to a crazy goal.

That had goal written all over it... Ozzie is on the ball tonight.

Ah, f*** it.

Ozzie has been outstanding tonight.

A pity Pavel won't get a point on the play... he and Hank worked a great give and go down low. Whenever the Wings work it down low and into the slot, their PP is much more dynamic than when they just try to force the point shot.

There we go.

Woooo Hopefully this energizes our listless Wings...

Wings are on their heels, running around...

That was just a great play by Jovanovski and Doan... And another good chance.

Well, why not.

When the world was young, Chris knew his way around the attacking zone.

Interesting look on that second unit...

Bit of a broken play on that odd man rush, but Ozzie stood tall. To be honest, I thought for sure it was gonna end up in the back of the net. So good on ya, Oz.

I didn't actually get to see last night's game, but I was merely commenting on his getting turned inside out by a rushing forward.

And Andreas Lilja will be performing the role of pylon for tonight's audience.

Bang bang, that's how it's done.

ZDH tonight? Sounds like Mickey has indicated that.

Start planning the parade down Woodward?

I'm pretty ok with running up the score on vastly inferior opponents. Make it happen, Wings.

That is right ******* hilarious.

Enforcer != Team Toughness While I don't feel that the Wings are exhibiting anywhere close to the physicality and team toughness presented in last year's playoff run (and I am taking into account the intensity present and necessary for season games vs playoff games), I also don't feel an enforcer has anything to do with it. Mike Babcock knows this as well as anyone. The Wings have such a ridiculous cache of highly skilled scorers that they don't need to get down and play dirty hockey and win the individual battles to score heaps of goals night in and night out. And while you can finesse on offense and win on a consistent basis (at least during the season), you can't sit on laurels and play solid defense. If you don't bring a physical game and hit and knock people over and block shots, you're going to give up goals even if you're sporting Nick Lidstrom and Brian Rafalaski on the blue line. The team's level of play has been altered, fundamentally, and inserting Aaron Downey into the line up doesn't change a thing. If teams bury four or five a night on half-assed clearing attempts and loose play along the boards, what's Aaron Downey got to do with it? I understand the significance of having a guy come in and play good tough hockey and stand up for his teammates, especially during the season. And in the same breath, I recognize that this guy doesn't alter a team's mindset and tendencies, that this guy isn't the answer for the issues that you pin on the team. The teams present issues with toughness run far deeper than Henrik Zetterberg getting a face-wash. So to clarify -- I would actually endorse getting a tough guy into the line up now and again. A fight can fire up the team and inspire better play. But it's not a fix or even a very good band-aid for the Wings' issues with toughness.