Can we have another game like Tuesday?

We'd like to be able to say something profoundly intelligent about the way the Red Wings played that game in Vancouver, but Trisha was on painkillers at the time, and I was half asleep in a post-midterm haze. And no, neither made the dark, sad portions of the first period any easier to watch, I'm sorry to say.

But it did look like Jimmy Howard had the goddamned game of his life out there. I only wish it didn't take pulling Ozzie to wake the team up (and hopefully pulling Ozzie woke up Ozzie). That was probably the most intense October game I've ever seen. Again, maybe it was the three hours of sleep and the painkillers, but if it could keep us both conscious until 1 a.m., then it had to be pretty good.

Today the Wings are in Edmonton for the second to last game of the road trip, and the world is freaking out about the Swine Flu. I know it's kind of a big deal, but I don't think Gary will have a repeat of 1918 until Sidney Crosby is on a respirator. Still, all the hype (and continued lack of sleep) is giving me trippy mental images of Piet Van Zant's daily lectures about the proper use of hand sanitizer and I somehow imagine the whole team walking around like this:

It looks like the freaking zombie apocalypse. Be careful not to get Swine Flu, Kronner. We can't afford to lose anyone else at this point.

Whut. the crap. was that?

I don't really think I have anything to say after that game. Honestly, the level of ridiculousness was so high that I spent most of the game laughing. It was either that or cry.

On a dial-up internet connection, I'm not going to try to confirm this, but as of the seventh goal, I think I heard Ken mention that Rafalski and Lidstrom were still even with their plus-minus. Who the hell was at like a -5 to make this happen? I have the mental image of Raffi leaping into the bench in a panic to protect his stats when he thought Nashville was about to score.

This MS Paint job is better than that game was. Think about how sad that is.

Of course, maybe that game never happened. Maybe it was all part of an elaborate acid trip hallucination I'm having. We've changed the channel to what Lindsay tells me is Hockey Night in Canada, but for some reason, all I'm seeing is footage of a lion-fish superimposed over a photograph of Kelly Hrudey dog-sledding. I don't even know.

I'm going to go gorge myself on leftover paczki and hope I never have to sit through another game like that again.