Take a deep breath. One more to go.

In the newspapers tomorrow, everyone's going to be talking about the epicness of Friday's game. I bet Mitch Albom wrote his article three days ago. They're going to mention the same four or five things over and over again to fill an entire sports section, because that's what they get paid to do.

I don't get paid, so I'm not going to sit here and do that. And I'm not going to pretend that I'm excited about a game seven.

Pointing fingers? The refs weren't calling much either way. Chris Osgood had like eight-thousand saves. I don't even know if the Wings had enough shots on Fleury for me to be able to point at his whorishness on this one.

So you can pick your goat, but I'm going with my dad, who made a prediction before the game.

Anyway, the Wings still aren't out of it, and they're pretty good at home. So I'm keeping my positive face on. (at least until game day, when I melt into a puddle of nervous goo.) Someone's winning the Cup by the end of the week, and I like our odds.

I don't know how you're dealing with the frustration, but as for me and Lindsay, we're keeping sane by making fun of Jim Balsillie's name. Maybe that makes us fifteen year old boys, but seriously. Balsillie.

No guesses from us

Now's about the last chance any of us have to make our finals predictions. Maybe you were waiting for ours.

You're not getting any. At our house, you don't even say the word "prediction" out loud. Just typing it in the same blog post twice is getting me sideways glances from Lindsay. We have hung the phone up on our own father before because he sounded like he might have been just about to tell us what he thought the final score was going to be.

Besides, all my internet predictions this season have ended disasterously. There's enough for us to worry about right now without me dooming the team. Injuries. Malkin not having the flu again. Scheduling that makes it look like Gary's not taking any chances this year.

Seriously, the man has to be wetting himself over the chance to do last year over again, with his ending.

But even with all that potential pukeyness hanging in the air, it's been like Christmas in our household over the last few days thanks to a wonderful and mysterious benefactor named Karen.

We don't know what she looks like, so here's an artist's rendition:

If you can take your eyes off the legs, you'll notice the halo. We don't break out Paint Shop Pro for just anyone, people.

RED WINGS TRADE DEADLINE BREAKING NEWS

Nothing happened. You can go about your business.

No coach makes more amusing bench faces than Gretzky

There's a game tonight. I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, after the Red Wings won the last game in a shootout over the St. Louis Blues, I skipped elatedly back to my room, wave after wave of happiness and relief washing over me. Then I stopped and thought about what kind of ass-tastical month my team must be having if I was about to break into song over a shootout win against the St. Louis Blues, and the hockey stress kind of came back stronger.

The good news is tonight I have a really good excuse not to watch the game - it's on FSN Plus, a channel that GVSU's cable service provider decided we didn't need. I'll be listening to Ken Kal via the internet, because nothing gets more French homework done than hockey over the radio. At least Zetterberg's back in the lineup.

My thoughts on what we're walking into? Well, the last time I made predictions before a Phoenix game, the worst ones came true, so I'm not even touching this one with my own opinion. Hank's horoscope has no useful insight today, unless I'm to take that his "lucky numbers" mean that the lines are going to run Helm-Samuelsson-Maltby and Zetterberg-Draper-Hudler, although if they're still playing sucky and Babcock starts pulling names from a hat again, I would not be surprised. Creeped out, maybe, now that I've written it down, but not at all surpised. Maybe somebody who's actually watching this game can fill me in if it happens; it's kind of hard to keep track of line changes when you can't actually see them.

Osgood gets the start again tonight, which I guess means that he'll also be starting in Pittsburgh on Sunday, and... ... I don't want to talk about the goalies right now, so here, have a picture of Wayne Gretzky being pissed off.


Let it give you hope for the near future.

The game's not even over yet

Lindsay wanted me to write out a lengthy game report, but if you'll just scroll down to the previous post, my prediction #3 (The Ugly) wasn't too far off. 3-6 Coyotes, Stuart and Datsyuk are MIA. (I never got into my roommate's vodka.)

I'll blame this on the fact that all the Red Wings were thinking about their upcoming All-Star break vacations in Cancun, and just plumb forgot to play hockey. Much in the same way no one does busy work the day before summer vacation, or the year and a half before graduation. They'll all show up to next week's game against the Blue Jackets ready to go. This is what I have to believe.

There'll probably be a post about the All-Star game.

I'm never making predictions again.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

For tonight's game:

It can go one of three ways -

1. The Good
1st period
- Conklin gets the start
- The Coyotes get murdered
- Dan Cleary's dad interviews Nick Lidstrom during first intermission.
2nd period
- The Coyotes continue to get murdered
- Eurotwins?
- Pavel talks about how much he loves Hank in the second intermission.
3rd period
- The murder fails to cease
- Gretzky swears on camera
- Conklin's new nickname is "Mister Zero", the internet crucifies Ozzie less zealously for a day.

2. The Bad
1st period
- Conklin gets the start
- The Coyotes don't allow themselves to be murdered
- Larry Murphy interviews pissed off Mike Babcock during first intermission.
2nd period
- The Coyotes start to murder the Red Wings
- Hank's on a line with Sammy and Drapes
- Ken spends second intermission talking with Windsor native d-man Ed Jovanovski about his hat trick.
3rd period
- Overtime loss
- Ken Holland swears on camera
- Conklin's new nickname is "Chris Osgood", the internet calls for a change in captains.

3. The Ugly
1st period
- Conklin gets pulled
- The Coyotes rape our already rock-bottom team GAA
- Intern Mike interviews Claude Lemieux during first intermission.
2nd period
- Rape continues
- Franzen, Hossa, Datsyuk, Kronwall, and Lidstrom need assistance off the ice
- I spend second intermission hitting my roommate's vodka.
3rd period
- Regulation embarrassment
- Nick Lidstrom swears at Trevor Thompson on camera
- Conklin's new nickname is "Manny Legace", I don't get back on the internet for three months.

I can't wait.