Going too far? Or just far enough?

This is your three-hour early WTF Wednesday, to make up for all those times I posted at ten from midnight with Wednesday mostly over.

Maybe you've been there during spring, or maybe you've seen pictures or heard tales, or maybe you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but you know the giant Al the Octopus sculpture that looms near the front entrance of the Joe around playoff time?

Well this year, in keeping with the Red Wings' playoff slogan, he'll be growing a beard.

I'd make some kind of sarcastic comment about an octopus being technically unable to grow hair (I mean, even letting alone the fact that Al's facial features are not where most octopodes' facial features are, obviously making him a special sort of octopus), but then it occurred to me that tires don't generally spout wings, either, and that's not stopped anyone for the last 75 years, so I'll let this one slide.

That's just ridiculous enough to be awesome though. Does anyone know if they've done this before?

Columbus? Really?

The regular season is over and it's been a crazy ride. For me, the 2008-09 season started with a phone call while I was at Pet Supplies Plus buying cat food telling me that the Wings had just signed Marian Hossa. It ended with a phone call while I was playing tennis telling me that the Wings had just signed Johan Franzen. (I guess for Trisha, the start and end to the season involved knocking things over to get to her cell phone to tell me the news.) This season had it's ups and downs, ranging everywhere from the Winter Classic awesomeness to those two horrible Saturday games (you know which two I mean). At least this season didn't have a February 2008 (Uh, so far. Let's hope this whole Hossa resting thing isn't the start of something unpleasant).

The season as a whole was good, even if it was peppered with the ridiculousness that was the 82-game "goalie situation", spotty defensive coverage from a team whose players have 9 Norris Trophies (and 2 Selkes) between them, holding the top spot in the league for a day (it was a glorious day), and a seemingly unnecessary amount of west-coast road trips and back to backs. I don't really want to remember the All-Star game.

It was a crazy year.

Derek Meech scored his first NHL goal


So did Ville Leino


And Pavel Datsyuk got his 500th point


Draper and Maltby made it to 1000 NHL games


Hossa got in a fight!


Ozzie tied Dom for the #10 spot in all-time wins for goalies with 389 (yeah, not quite the same as Brodeur's awesomeness, but I'm doing what I can with what I'm given)


And the Wings signed Hank and Franzen FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY


Awesome. If the 2008-09 Detroit Red Wings were an ice cream flavor, there would not be quite as many chocolate chunks per scoop as 2007-08, and the caramel ribbon might be a little grainy, but you would still go back for seconds, and probably thirds too, you porker.

********
Now the playoffs are here. I'm not excited. The first round opponent the Wings got stuck with this year? The Columbus Blue Jackets: an irritating Central Division rival that has never managed to make the playoffs in the history of the team. I know - it's better than Anahiem by way of travel. But I like to think in worst-case scenarios, and the Ducks knocking the Wings out in the first round would fuel a dirty rivalry. I'd be angry. Losing this series to the BJs, a team with no franchise playoff experience, and a crappy reputation? It would make me sad. I hope I never have to hear that cannon go off.

In Red Wings news: The Red Wings have recalled Darren Helm. It seems a little early to be bringing up the Black Aces, and I deeply hope that it's not because Hossa's groin injury is going to keep him out of the first round. I haven't heard any solid indication that it will, but this is the playoffs, and "lower body injury" can mean anything from "nasty hangnail" to "my foot is facing backwards and my femur is poking my spleen."

Columbus loses its playoff virginity to the Red Wings this Thursday April 16th at 7pm. I doubt the Wings will be gentle.

Jason Arnott had a wet and wild night

No, really. That's Jason Arnott.

It seemed like his was the only name Ken mentioned. If nothing else, that meant that at least I didn't have to spend the entire game hearing about Jordan Tootoo. But it also meant that by the time he skated out to take the shootout, it felt like he was destined to score. I spend another night watching the number on my kitchen whiteboard not go up. Lindsay curses Ken Daniels for jinxing the game with his talk of numbers.

It wasn't like it was sixty minutes of pure awfulness, either. There was a lot of good hockey played tonight, against a desperate team. Some defensive idiocy as well, yeah, but up until the end, a lot of good hockey.

And all I'm going to remember is how the Red Wings blew another 2 goal lead. Ugh, how frustrating.

I fricking hate Nashville.

It's the Preds again...

I'm so excited.

Rafalski is back.

Lilja's brain is bleeding, and I'm not going to lie - I'm a little worried.

Unfortunate piece of news from the bottom of the article I linked to concerning the likely event of Johan Franzen getting a new contract:

"Holland also wants to re-sign Marian Hossa but cannot sign both Franzen and Hossa now due to a lack of salary cap room."

I was still holding out hope that signing both was possible. Who would you rather see stay? Personally I'd pick Mule, but it's for sentimental reasons, and I'm probably a crazy fool, which is why I don't run a hockey team, I only blog about one.

As for this game, I only hope that Kronner and Ericsson be careful, lest they fall victim to Shea Weber's attempt at systematically laying out every Swedish defenseman on the team. Lidstrom missed 2 1/2 games last December after blocking one of his shots with his ankle, and the Lilja/Weber fight during one of the teams' last meetings was the last thing Lilja will have done all season. Joy.

WTF Wednesday- Nikolai Khabibulin looks like other people (and chases Norwegians with a wrench?)

Well, he does. In honor of the Wings playing Chicago every other day for the rest of the season, here he is.

He makes one face while he's in net, and it's the same face every time.





"Arg..."

Here's what he does on weekends?



(make sure you at least skip ahead to the 2 minute mark)

Alright, Evgeni Plushenko a bit of a stretch, but imagine turning on your television at three in the morning only to find this creep who looks like an NHL goalie licking his hand. Because I did. It haunts me still.

And this one is dead on. I cannot have been the only one who noticed this:




Tomorrow's game is against Nashville. What kind of sick joke is this schedule?

Some much more intelligent thoughts on last night's game

That game was much closer to something I would expect to see going into a Wings game, especially as compared to a few of the games preceding it: a few bogus calls (or no calls in the case of that high stick on Mule), decent defensive coverage, five minute fighting majors for giant Swedes, an away arena filled with Wings fans, a Nick Lidstrom goal from ten thousand feet away, Chris Osgood not failing, and most importantly, a win. It was by no means perfect, but, like I said, it was a vast improvement from the the last few games.

And come on. I can't be the only one who was excited to see Ericsson finally drop the gloves.



So maybe it wasn't as good as Hossa's fight against Suter (because since when does Marian Hossa fight?) but it still makes me smile. There's a part of me that wants Ericsson back in Grand Rapids so I can see him play live again for $10 and a crowded bus ride, but every game he plays in the NHL the better he gets. And he's been looking pretty good. I guess Babcock's obvious man-crush on him was fully warranted.

***

Useless fact of the day: Pierre McGuire's real name is Regis. His middle name is Pierre. Regis Pierre McGuire.

Monster.

Hossa Hits 40, and other good news

Games like that make me feel better about the Red Wings in general, especially heading into the playoffs. And I don't just mean because they won. The Red Wings won plenty of games this season where afterward I felt like screaming into a pillow as though they'd lost. I can name some, if you like. The 10-25 game against the Blackhawks. That one in January against the Ducks. February 2nd shootout against the Blues. I'm sure there's more, but you don't want me to list them all.

It's probably no coincidence that all three of those were one-goal games. At the same time, there were plenty of one-goal games this season, even a couple of losses, that I didn't walk away from wanting to puke. You remember. Those games when the Red Wings actually showed up to play close to 60 minutes of hockey. Those games were wonderful.

Tonight really reminded me of those games.

This was an ass-boring post, but I'd like to still have something to say tomorrow. This has become a real M-W-F kind of blog, and that's never what we intended. Of course, that wouldn't be a problem if someone (*coughcoughMySistercough*) would contribute once in a while, but I won't point fingers.

Oh, and for those of you who care, the Wings signed Francis Pare today. Just look at that face.


That one's a keeper.

And the big news of the day, I guess -

Chris Osgood is the playoff starter. Definitely.

Probably.

Well, Babcock's "pretty sure," anyway.

...

I'm a little worried about the playoffs.

Ok, I'm a lot worried about the playoffs. And it's not because of Chris Osgood and The Craptastic Season of Why Did You Let That Puck In.

It's not because I don't think the Red Wings can do it, either. They most certainly can. They have the talent. They have the experience. Even with the hangover, they probably still have most of the drive. But will they? That's the question.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but this season it felt like the Wings rarely lived up to full potential. They played some good hockey, and had some awesome games, and with where they are in the standings, I have no right to complain in front of the fans of most other teams - but the whole time it seemed like something was failing to click.

They remind me of those kids in high school who coasted through doing the bare minimum and graduated with a B- average - a good grade, good enough to get into the colleges they wanted to, but they could have been valedictorian if they'd only taken notes and done their math homework.

To put it another way, this season, the Wings were like the following picture:


Yes, there are some awesome things in that picture, but taken as a whole... it doesn't make any goddamned sense.

I really hope that sometime during the next week, the Red Wings start to make sense. Because even though I made it, that picture is starting to creep me the hell out.

The organization will provide

I was fully prepared to scrap WTF Wednesday this week, because I had nothing worth your time, and it was April Fool's day anyway, so even if I had something, none of you would believe me. Then, at zero-hour, the following was brought to my attention:

No, the Red Wings aren't putting on a production of Fiddler on the Roof (but god, what I'd spend to go see that). They're promoting their 2009 playoff slogan, which, in case you haven't heard yet, is "The Beard is Back."

Have you guys seen this yet? I have never seen so many rich people so reluctant to do something in my life.



You can vote for your favorite playoff beard here. I'm rooting for Kris Draper, because his beard actually scored a goal in the conference finals. What has your beard done lately?

...

Yeah. That's what I thought.