Hank Zetterberg Can Do Anything He Puts His Mind To

Truly beautiful: watching the Wings' PP unit stay on the ice for what seemed like forever, refusing to relent (even after the power play expired) to make damn sure Hank extended his point streak. Despite Ken and Mick's adamant insistence upon jinxing the shit out of Z, he, Pavs, Homer, Nick, Rafalski, and a rather out of place Kirk Maltby got the job done in phenomenal fashion. I don't know what says more about Hank and this team - that he's registered a point in 16 straight, or that he and the rest of the guys on the ice basically just willed him to get a goal. Successfully.

What's that BJs? You want the puck back? Yeah, sure, just one sec, I gotta take care of this point-streak thing. Hey, hold still... there we go. Okay, all yours.

Although the scope of importance was much, much less, that last push for Z's goal reminded me of the last game against the Ducks last year. Further proof that the Eurotwins' individual ability and drive is such that they can simply will goals. They have the capacity to throw this team on their collective backs and drag them. The difference, of course, between the Wings and the Canucks is that Luongo had to throw the Nucks on his back for the entirety of the playoffs - Hank and Pavs should only be called upon from time to time.

Anyway, the game was altogether great. I missed the first, but Hasek looked solid. And the goal spread was exactly what you want it to be: a couple goals from your high end guys, and a couple goals from your role players. Oh, and again I missed the first so maybe Wings fans just got tired, but I didn't notice any Fedorov booing. Progress? Question mark?

Edit: In fact, NHL.com says that for the Z goal, the unit was on the ice for 1:37. Just sick. And for the Homer goal, he and Dats were out for about the same amount of time.

Bah!

So I'm finally getting around to seeing games, getting a feel for the team again, enjoying the hell out of watching Z, Dats, and Homer make the rest of the league look stupid, to say nothing of Chris Osgood. And then what? A week off. The fuck? What kind of scheduling is that? Six days between games? Does that normally happen or am I overreacting?

And then of course on that long awaited day, Center Ice decides to black me out. I live in Chicago, not Nashville, you dorks. Word is Kopecky got bumped from the lineup though? Interesting. And ESPN tells me Cleary scored from Filppula and Hudler. Does that mean he's pulling 2nd line duty? And Hudler too?

Not seeing games sucks.