Heroes of Hockeytown

I hope Rafalski can keep this kind of play up. Hopefully a return to 60 point territory.

Nice play from all involved. Great backhand pass from Hudler, nice deflectable wrister by Rafalski, great tip and stuff from Dano.

He was shooting the puck tonight; this makes me smile.

Ozzie's gotten enough practice facing 2-on-1s tonight to last him the rest of the season.

And lo, for it was Miller Time.

Tremendous wheels from Flip. And he shot the puck! What a revelation.

Nice work from Tardif. Stepping into the big shoes of J-Will ain't easy.

Not that it's any less than I expected from the Griffs, but man are they getting undressed out there.

Oh, you guys... The rebound was ugly but the main problem for me happened 100 feet away. Does Ericsson really think he can get to that puck first? He must know that no one can cover for him at that moment if he misses. Needlessly exposing your goaltender to 2-on-1s isn't part of a winning formula.

Ericsson doing what he does best.

Pretty good closing speed by Stuie. I thought Hossa was away to the races.

This is working for now. Took a minute for it to start.

Denard taking a hit, but he looks like he'll be okay. Hopefully he'll begin to learn that discretion is the better part of valor; stepping OOB and giving up that extra 2-3 yards is something he should start doing if he wants to prolong his career.

Don't worry, Shaun Hill is going to be the next Kurt Warner.

It was a brilliant gamble, I love gutsy football like that. It could've been disastrous if the tight end had gotten hung up or tripped at the LOS, but he got free and the rest is history. I'm guessing BK isn't very in love with the state of Michigan after these last two weeks.

I am compelled to defend my esteemed colleague, good friend, and blood brother on this account. Robert Lang led the Wings in playoff scoring in 2004 and was on his way to winning the Art Ross during the season before he broke his ribs; tied for Wings' playoff scoring lead in 2006 and put up 60 points despite being third line center behind Hank and Pav; and while he was terrible in 2007 he still managed to contribute with two huge, clutch goals in the playoffs. All of this info and more will be available in my upcoming book, A Brief History of Lang, set to debut as soon as I find a publisher that considers these historical events as important as I do.

Well there's Modano saying this: And Salei saying this: So my guess is the situation is under control.

Typical Lions implosion. With bonus Backus doing a s*** job and getting his QB killed.

Does this really pass as valid criticism? A variance in scoring between one game and the next? I hate to be that guy that says "you don't know hockey," but you have to watch that or just about any sport for about five minutes to understand that scores will vary, often wildly, between games. However these "inconsistent" Red Wings have found a kindred spirit in a team I believe you hold dear. Let me direct you to the case of Montreal v. Pittsburgh, wherein the Pens scored six goals in the first game but then required the next four games combined to reach that total. Perhaps their age is catching up with them -- 23 is the new 40.

The Lions winning 5-6 games seems like a reasonable prediction. Maybe they can even steal one from Minnesota if they keep playing like they did Thursday night -- although perhaps it is incredibly, mind-bogglingly stupid of me to suggest that the Lions could replicate the success of the defending Super Bowl champions. I'm still feeling good about penciling in Ws for the Rams, Bills, and Bucs; hopefully they can split with the Bears and Vikes; the rest of the schedule is a minefield though: Jets/Boys/Pats (why is a 2-14 team pitted against these guys?!) and of course the thorough stomping they'll get from the cheeseheads (x2). If they can get one or two wins out of the Eagles/Giants/Skins/Phins part of the sched that should be enough to get to where I think they can be.

I wonder if the newest proposal is actually legit (by whatever standard the NHL uses to judge that sort of thing), or if their hand was forced by Kovalchuk's ultimatum.

He's making more than I expected, for sure, and may have been out of the Wings' price range from the beginning. I know there were some critical of Holland's signings and how they would impact a potential Mitchell contract (among other valid reasoning); but I stressed patience then, until we saw how much he signed for. Presumably knowing he wasn't going to be able to match $3M+ offers, he instead he got the man he was after all along, Modano, and grabbed Salei to shore up the bottom pairing.

Pens got a good 1.5 seasons out of him basking in the glow of Crosby's majesty. The Pittsburgh Penguins And The Search For Wingers airs again this October.

I went to the Junior League World Series in Taylor, Michigan last week. It's the exact same thing as the Little League World Series but the kids are slightly older, so nobody cares. Here am I with my ethnically diverse cast of amigos. They are Taiwanese and seeing as they had me outnumbered, I had to hop on the Taiwan bandwagon. This turned out to be a great decision because Taiwanese kids kick ass at baseball. They won every game of the tournament and hammered Texas 9-1 in the final. Small wonder why, look at this ******* kid. This kid is like 15 years old. I bet he eats and s***s my weight in rice three times a day. Yay Taiwan! Sigh reads, "Taiwan, I love you!" Because damnit guys, I really f***in' love Taiwan. The colorful getup made me something of a fan favorite. "Weeee are the champions, my frieeeends..."

Blind Han Solo can be a metaphor for Red Wings fans' expectations for him, and the Sarlacc Pit can be the pressure of those expectations swallowing him whole.