Heroes of Hockeytown

As was said when the first line combos came out, everyone will play with everyone eventually. It's a shame the third line has to be splintered, though. They were scoring at least a goal a game for the last 4-5 games.

I think the main difference is that Franzen has done something, anything, to this point in the season, whereas Hudler has not. If you score goals in six straight games or whatever, then don't score for a few games, that's hockey. If you don't score at all for a dozen games, that's a problem.

I don't know about the pro-Bettman camp being the minority. Many of the NHL franchises that aren't as well off as Detroit (which can partially be traced to expansion when the owners wanted to get their hands on all of those delicious expansion fees) probably support all the work Bettman has done to wring the cap and revenue sharing and blah blah blah out of the PA. I know Detroit isn't happy with all of that because it never needed any of it; and so Wings fans happen to be in a rather unique situation where they can say "grr I hate Gary Bettman" and that is in line with what their team's ownership thinks. But I don't think that's where the majority of the NHL stands and that it'll be a while yet before the rest of the NHL outgrows Bettman, if ever.

Well that all sounds lovely and ideal but I doubt it's what the owners want. And while all of this is in the realm of the hypothetical -- I have no idea what level of meddling the owners would tolerate from their commissioner -- consider this: Bettman was hired out of the NBA and was never a hockey guy. He was picked up by the owners first and foremost to be a lawyer and make them money. He was never brought in to innovate or be a part of the decision making process. The genesis of Gary Bettman the NHL Commissioner is pretty telling to me.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. They put everything to a vote, don't they? The commissioner doesn't have any absolute authority to do much of anything, as far as I know. Basically just a figurehead. A horrible little troll, weaselly lawyer of a figurehead, maybe; but not someone you would blame, say, the shootout on (which incidentally was Shanahan's idea if I remember correctly).

If that were the case you'd have gotten your wish for a new commish, because Bettman would've been s***canned long, long ago. That's his one and only job, really.

Well, it was kind of a back and forth game. The Wings mostly only had jump in the 3rd and then into OT, though. I guess "wait until the 3rd to turn it on and win" makes this an old-school sort of game, then.

Nice slap-pass from Salei.

Wings are totally in control now. No OT!

Ericsson is begging to be glued to the bench.

Felt inevitable, good work and urgency to get control and tie the game.

That's more like it, Pavs.

Jesus, where have these Wings been?

Such melodrama. It's definitely not as good as it should be, but right now it's still pretty middle of the road in terms of rankings and percentage.

Smart hook.

Is it just me or does it feel like Yandle scores on the Wings every time they play?

The Wings haven't got any pep in their step tonight. Feels like they're holding on.

While I feel this particular goal was basically blameless, that's pretty terrible. Maybe Mike ought to send the PK unit over the boards for the last minute of periods from now on.

Goal wasn't his fault, or anyone's fault really. Pavel might have done a better job checking Hanzal but the puck just jumped right onto his stick so it's pretty much a bang-bang play.

If periods were 19 minutes long the Wings would never lose.

That was a weird turnover. Did he think there was someone up ice? Maybe he should have looked.

Rafalski playing well on the PP, at least.

Don't know if that GI is really warranted. Might've been a good acting job from Jimmy.

Pavel doin' what Pavel does. Hank is due, put it in the net, man.

Wow, that was totally nothing.