Todd Bertuzzi's Beard

The Red Wings have made enough deep playoff runs in recent years that the fans have come to understand that each one of their playoff beards has its own personality. Kris Draper's once beat Chuck Norris in a fight. Niklas Kronwall's fights crime while he's sleeping. Johan Franzen's apparently gives him superpowers (thanks for the curly fries, Mule. They were delicious).

But Todd Bertuzzi's sort of looks like you're gazing into the void.

yeah, that's the best picture of it I can find.

And because when I gazed into the void the void gazed back, here's the top ten things hiding in Todd Bertuzzi's beard:

10. The rest of his teeth
They had to go somewhere.

9. Brett Lebda
Because he's very small. And he could fit in there.

8. Mike Ilitch's sanity
I love him, but he's crazy(bread).

7. Jimmy Hoffa
I'm just kidding. Jimmy Hoffa lives in a condo in Vegas with Elvis and Tupac.

6. The lost city of Atlantis
The weight of all those buildings could explain why he hasn't been doing anything overly useful the last few games?

5. Zordon
Maybe he got imprisoned in there by Rita Repulsa or something. That seems logical.

4. Free curly fries
They are delicious.

3. A KFC Double Down
He's got to have something to eat during intermission.

2. Whiskey for Larry Murphy
Is there room for enough of it though?

1. Gordie Howe's dog

Just in case Gordie's been looking for him or anything -- I suggest he start in Todd Bertuzzi's beard. That is an awesome sweater though. You couldn't pull that sweater off like Gordie can.

You think it's more likely there's a stripper in there? Leprechauns? The Art Ross Trophy? That's what the comments are for.


Game 5, the second in a series of four consecutive must-wins for the Red Wings, starts at 10pm eastern. If you happen to actually be at the game, you should throw an octopus or twelve. Scott'll show you how it's done.

It's not the Arby's Curse - it's the Arby's Conspiracy...

Some scattered thoughts (since lately that's all I seem to be having) on tonight's game:

• Clearly the Red Wings need to sign Darren Helm for 2384873 bajillion years. And then start cloning him so he'll never get injured and never age. Games like this are why Lindsay's sacrificing the first two days of her spring break to own him as a bobblehead.
  

• Over on the other end of the spectrum, Dear Todd Bertuzzi: don't ever do that again. I mean the entire game. Don't ever have a game like that again. Go back to surprising everyone with timely goals and intelligent plays. Please.

• That goal by Datsyuk was the most spectacularly beautiful thing I think I've ever seen.

• Someone in the organization made a swanky deal with Arby's didn't they? A deal which would prevent hat tricks while allowing for a ridiculous amount of advertisement. Today Darren Helm went along with it. Just like the whole club's gone along with it for the better part of two seasons. Everyone except Henrik Zetterberg.

• Which is why I love Henrik Zetterberg. Because Henrik Zetterberg fights The Man.
  

Groundhog Day

Today is that magical day when Bill Murray movies are showing on eight different channels and we wait with bated breath for an ugly rodent in Pennsylvania to tell us that it's spring everywhere except Michigan, where it's still going to be cold, bleak, and unfortunate until the middle of May.

still winter, bitches

On top of that, tonight the Red Wings play a west coast team until two in the morning, whereas tomorrow the Red Wings play a west coast team until two in the morning. And given what we've come to expect from the broadcast team at FSD... well, I'll be honestly surprised if we don't get at least three groundhog day jokes.

Heres hoping Todd Bertuzzi gets a birthday hat trick so that we can all go to Arby's and get some birthday curly fries.

And maybe I should clarify, because this seems to be happening a lot lately - if he does get a birthday hat trick, I want the Wings to keep the lead until the game is over. Not over like there's two minutes left. Over like all the players have retired to their respective dressing rooms and have disrobed and showered and are giving interviews to the assembled media. All the way over.

You listening Red Wings? You have to play the whole game until it's over.

Or you'll make me cry.

I got detained at the border for telling the customs agent I was heading to Toronto to kill a man

We were planning to postpone the post about the Dallas game until after the Chicago game in hopes that we would have something more substantial and pleasant to write than:

"Grumble grumble argh complain... I hate Steve Ott... grumble rant... NHL officiating... ugh bad photoshop complain... suck it, Toronto... vomit."

Well, after the game against Chicago, the only substantial thing we can do is take that and add:

"argh... 20 cent... why, Marian?... vomit more."

The Wings lost two games in two days, both decided by a shootout. And while they were painful to watch as a Wings fan, I can't say that I wasn't at least entertained.



Who knew Bertuzzi had that in him?

Even our aunt loves Todd Bertuzzi

No, really. I mean, at first it was sort of cute, you know, like aw, our crazy lady aunt has a crush on Todd!, but then he started scoring every goal in the game again, and no, my aunt loves Todd Bertuzzi.

Like, when they interviewed him in postgame it was "Shhh, my boyfriend's talking! Isn't he cute!" And our aunt's not the cool aunt who's only seven years older than you are. She's like your mom. I mean, I never understood those people who would melt from embarassment over their mothers having gushing crushes on George Clooney, but I get it now. I definitely get it now.

Not that I can really blame her - admit it: if Todd Bertuzzi keeps being the only Red Wing who can consistently win us games, you'll be in love with him before too long too.

By the end of that game, I wanted to say that it was the greatest game in the history of the franchise, but that's only because it feels like it's been three years since the Wings have walked away with a point. In actuality, that was pretty gross, but I'd rather the team win gross games than lose at all.

- Howard was pretty good from where I was sitting. I understand going with the hot goalie, but Ozzie's four wins away from 400, and as happy as I am with Jimmy's performance, I want him to make there. He's been my favorite forever; it makes me sad.

- No, seriously - holy crap Todd Bertuzzi. I don't even know what's going on.

- I could bitch about the first period, but if the Red Wings are going to spend a third of each game sleeping, I would much prefer they choose the first and not the third. I miss the days when the Wings would mount a spectacular win and I would sit down at the computer and complain for three paragraphs about defensive coverage and lack of secondary scoring. I like that better than lamenting the end of the universe because they played alright and lost.

- I watched every replay of Helm's save, but I'm still not sure how he did it. I think he must have been moving faster than the cameras could pick up.

Do we really have to watch the BJs again? Twice in a row? This schedule is janky.

Todd Bertuzzi is as awesome as college is not

I don't actually know if I have words right now for my feelings toward Todd Bertuzzi. Which is unfortunate, because the end of that game was really the only part I remember now. (That and the pukey feeling I got every time I saw somebody go down, since we're pretty much out of bodies right now.) Bertuzzi's surprise repeat awesomeness has overpowered my short-term memory banks.

I do have words for Grand Valley's inability to pick up FS+, stranding me with the Nashville feed on the internet. Most of them I tend to avoid in polite company. Some of you may remember that this is not the first time I have subjected myself to this torture. Tonight was no improvement.

First of all, the Predators are having a mustache contest for prostate awareness. That's right. They're growing porno-tastic facial-hair to encourage men to let complete strangers shove their cold fingers... I mean, I'm all for prostate health, but really, Nashville? Really?

What's more, instead of Red Wings player of the game updates, I was encouraged to vote for my favorite Pred-stache (which is now my new replacement word for "pedo-stache". Even the hockey-ignorant will get the joke).

*gagging noises...*

Alright Bubba, I'll bite. My vote was for Dan Hamhuis because his looks the most well-groomed.

Sadly, my vote counted for nothing, as J.P. Dumont won the contest by a landslide.

I wonder what his prize is. Maybe a free prostate exam...


It turns out that the announcers in Nashville couldn't believe that Bertuzzi had actually saved the game a second night in a row either, since they seemed pretty sure that Zetterberg had scored the goal, but the screams of "HOLY CRAP! HOLY CRAP, TODD, ARE YOU KIDDING ME, OH MY GOD BERTUZZI WHAT THE CRAP!" that were coming from my phone sounded surer than they did.

Let's revisit that moment again, shall we?


Ah... beautiful.

And it was Chris Osgood's 396th career win, which took him 5 weeks to get. Good lord.

Even your mom loves Todd Bertuzzi

Be honest - none of you expected last night's game from Todd Bertuzzi at the beginning of the season. I didn't even expect that from Todd Bertuzzi, and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt all season.

And what do you do to the guy who just threw your NHL win-count into double-digits? You make him eat your catching glove. We noticed in Grand Rapids that Jimmy was particularly fond of joining goal celebrations, going so far as to skate out to center ice with his arm out hoping that somebody would notice him and give a little love. But even for him, that was a little epic.

There's a running bet between me and my sister (that will probably never be resolved) about why Ozzie wasn't in net. She thinks it's because of his strange and highly vocal love of playing against Nashville.

I think he was in mourning for Tiger Woods' hiatus from golf and was emotionally unable to play.

I love him but he's like a child.

So despite having been performed on a player that already had an injury, I'm calling the voodoo a success. Now all I have to do is find a Martin Erat card and a box of matches, and tonight's game is in the bag.

Because we're playing Nashville again tonight. Train whistles ahoy.

Sweet Swedish retribution

The St. Louis game put us in a position where, for the first time either of us could remember, so long as no Red Wings left the ice dead or injured, or as long as they scored a single goal (that counted), we would be satisfied.

The realization that this was the point to which the season had sunken our spirits sort of made me want to throw up a little in my mouth.

Watching Todd Bertuzzi skate out on the ice to take the shootout made me want to throw up a lot in my mouth, and the awful sound of the puck hitting the post that I 100% expected to hear still sort of haunts my nightmares (and I actually like Todd Bertuzzi, so I don't want to imagine how horrible that moment must have been for the haters) even though he actually got the puck in the back of the net and I danced around the living room in happiness.

The Wings are still gunning for a home ice being-shut-out record of like ten thousand minutes though.

I'd post something relevant about tonight's game against the Dallas Stars, but all I have is a rant about how I want the Eurotwins back on a line together and a picture of Marty Turco shirtless. I'll post either upon sufficient request.

But if there's sufficient request for naked Turco, I might have to retire from blogging forever.

Odds and ends

We haven't updated in a while. It's not necissarily that news has been slow, it's that what news there is seems to either be focused on speculation over whether Patrick Kane actually beat up some guy over twenty cents, or forum arguments about whether the Red Wings Todd Bertuzzi experiement is really worth repeating (I'm willing to see how it plays out before I cast any judgement).

I heard from a friend of a friend that a blog was reporting that Elliot Friedman said that Aaron Downey's going to see if he can't be a Coyote next season, and you know what? - I'm pulling for him. I'll sure as hell miss him (so will an awful lot of Griffins fans), but it'd be good to see him back in a regular/semi-regular NHL lineup.

Puck Daddy posted an article about the new US Olympic men's ice hockey jerseys like... a week ago, but if you haven't already read it, it discusses this image, which I guess will be on the sleeves or something... I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I'm not exactly sure if it resonates any kind of patriotic vibe for me (and I can't get over thinking that thing at the top looks sort of like a swastika), but then again, the stories in the symbolism are kind of neat, and it's not like it's the ugliest thing the United States has ever used to represent itself.

The US's orientation camp this week, which from what I can gather, involved an awful lot of press releases, playing with small children, signing autographs, and taking embarrassing yearbook pictures in front of a varied set of studio backgrounds. I'm not sure whether my favorite is Old Glory, or Dramatically lit frosted glass blocks, which, I'm not gonna lie, sort of reminds me of the bathrooms at Van Andel Arena.

But you have to agree that Brian Rafalski is totally working it in that picture.