edicius

No goal. Beautiful.

Guh. Another great chance. Kipper's giving us nothing.

Kipper stones us again.

Holy crap. That should have been a goal. Dammit.

Did...Sammy just draw a penalty? Hmm. Might have to defrost that crow.

SAVE BY DOM!

Swatting at Kipper's glove. No joke.

What a @#$%ing joke.

Oh great. 4-on-4.

PP?

Giardano raised his stick at Homer. That should be an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Shouldn't we be in their zone a little bit more? Just got away with a too many men there. Nice save by Dom.

THANK YOU, DOM.

I can. I knew he wouldn't scratch Sammy because "he's big"...despite the fact that he doesn't even USE his size to ANY advantage. I'm actually surprised that Hudler's in, since Babcock seems to have something against him. Benching Calder is idiotic, though. The Freep mentions that Calder has 0 points in 4 games. Well, guess what? SO DOES SAMUELSSON. At least Calder BRINGS SOMETHING TO THE TABLE. Ugh.

Just saw on the Freep...Hudler in, CALDER scratched. Great. Good @#$%ing job, Babcock. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...9/70421007/1048

I swear to god, if Babcock benched anyone other than Sammy for Hudler, I'm gonna scream. Why do I get a sneaking suspicion that he's benched Flip?

Me too.

On my way home, I heard on XM that Rex is in today...does that mean (please) that Sammy's out?

Canada seems to have different censorship laws. I can't tell you the number of times when watching CBC (when I still lived in MI) that I'd hear someone spouting profanities in a movie or the occasional episode of Kids In The Hall or, in one really odd case, naked people running around. My mom was the one who fell prey to the latter. That said, I hope Don Cherry keeps his suit on.

I didn't think so, but I'd have to watch the replay. I don't remember a shot coming in then. That said, the refs are setting a really bad precedent once again. Elbow Hasek in the head? Nah, it's okay, it's just Hasek. Unofficially declares open season on him. Meanwhile at the other end of the ice, Kipper manages to sell just about every call to the refs (except his lovely pirouette when Cleary was coming in during Game 1 or 2, can't remember which). They keep preaching consistency - but all they seem to be consistent with right now are borderline hooking calls on BOTH teams.

I'm simply hoping that having the last change at home will still do something for us.

Ah, you're right...I remember initially diving was lumped in with unsportsmanlike penalties. But now that you mention it, diving is its own penalty now. So basically, Dom got called for pointing at a player - with his stick, since as I said before, catching gloves and blockers don't point very well - who had just committed an infraction. Oh well. What's done is done.

I don't know if I can speak for everyone else, but I can speak for myself. Before this series began, I wasn't very optimistic. I've come to expect the early round meltdowns by the Wings now and wasn't getting my hopes up again. In our playoff predictions thread and my blog, I picked the Flames in six. Then Games 1 and 2 happened. And they got my hopes up. I was feeling good about Red Wings playoff hockey again. Then Games 3 and 4 happened. And suddenly, I was beginning to flashback to '03, '04 and '06. My initial pessimism overtook my newfound optimism. "God damn it, it's happening AGAIN." Now, I'm not going to say something ridiculous like, "I'm never going to watch hockey again if they lose this series!" But year after year, with expectations always so high and results always so lacking...it just f@#%ing HURTS as a diehard Red Wings fan. I'm not being negative due to mob mentality or anything like that. I'm negative because I've seen this before and I already know what to expect...and I think I'm trying to psychologically brace myself for another letdown. Can the Wings win this series? Of course. It's only tied 2-2. WILL the Wings win this series? My gut keeps reminding me of '03, '04, '06... *psst* '04. '03 was an more embarassing disaster. EDIT: Clarity...I'm obviously flustered.

What about Kipper hauling off and punching Homer? Because I thought that's what we were referring to here. The whacks of the stick are just a given - it's why Homer wears shinpads on the back of his legs. A) That wasn't what Hasek was penalized for (as far as I can tell). He was penalized for diving as a result of Iginla's elbow to his head. B) He wasn't swinging his stick at Iginla. He was pointing at Iginla with his stick (since the catching glove and blocker don't point too well) in a "WTF ref?!" manner. If pointing at another player who just committed an infraction is an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty... And I have a feeling that if Hasek had whacked Iginla in the shins as he went by, Iginla would have dropped in a heartbeat and Hasek would have gotten called for tripping.

Someone mentioned Dom trying to hack Iginla's head off with his stick (not seriously, of course)...am I the only one that thought that Dom was merely pointing at Iginla, basically saying to the ref, "Where the hell's the call on HIM?"