Hoss & the Red Wing Raiders

Chicago has a very simple player acquisition strategy: raid the Red Wings. First Jason Williams, then Robert Lang and Brent Sopel, now a pair of Slovak wingers (albeit at opposite ends of the "who gives a shit" spectrum) Marian Hossa and Tomas Kopecky. I don't say this to put down the Blackhawks; it's a good strategy. Anyone qualified to be anywhere on the depth chart of the Detroit Red Wings, the deepest franchise in hockey, is qualified to be on your team, and is probably an improvement. I mean look at Kyle Quincey. If I was Dave Tallon I'd be looking at Mikael Sammuelsson too, and either Brett Lebda or Derek Meech, whichever one gets inevitably dumped to make room for Jonathon Ericsson. Anyone Ken Holland touches turns to gold.

As for Hossa, he made about the best move he could have. He learned his lesson the hard way with the Wings: even though he made the best possible guess as to which team could take him to the Stanley Cup, he still lost, and in fact lost in the worst possible way; game 7 against his former club. Going forward he probably had two priorities balanced: winning (which as we know is very important to him) and getting appropriate value for his skill (which is only fair). Dave Tallon took a page out of Kenny Holland's playbook by giving him a Franzen-type deal, just a slightly higher price tag; ultra-long term, front-loaded. Hossa has a great chance to win a Cup. It's almost impossible to imagine Chicago not getting a championship (or two) in the next decade. They've assembled a great team and the only questions now are, can they get the goaltending? and, when will the wonder twins mature to the level necessary to grab the chalice? The Wings and the Pens will be around a long, long time, but this past year showed no Dynasty can win them all, not these days anyway, and every team has a shot.

I hope Wings fans don't boo Hossa, who surely would have stayed if Holland could have offered him anything even remotely close to market value. He didn't just ask Hossa for a discount, he asked him for a blowout bonanza. I'll say to Hossa (and Kopecky) what I said to Cheli (although not with the same degree of emotion): thanks for the memories, good luck with your new team, no hard feelings.

Thanks for the memories, Cheli

Simply a legend, classy to the end, instrumental to the success of the Dynasty over the last decade.

it wouldn't be so good when they win

if it weren't so motherfucking awful when the lose.


that's all i got.

Osgood for Conn

So the excitement of the Western Conference Final may have proved a little too much for me, since about 5 hours after I was heading to the ER with some heart issues. Fortunately I was released on Friday, in plenty of time to catch Game 1 on a nice CBC feed and not the NBC crap I would have had to have watched at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Not that the gap in posting that resulted was noticeable at all compared to my usual Lang-like absences.

Anyway. Osgood for Conn. Can it be anyone else at this point? Two fluky goals last night. Two fluky goals tonight. This team has not been as dominant, not nearly as much, as last year's team. I don't know what it is. The Hangover, the Lack of Hunger, the Lack of Datsyuk, Draper, the injuries to the Perfect Human. This team just isn't firing on all cylinders like last year.

Except one is firing, like, motherfucking double time. Lidstrom said it best: it's the best Ozzy has played. Period. It feels good. It feels quite good to finally be THAT team. You know, the team the Wings have so often lost, or nearly lost to in the playoffs -- that team that is just clearly inferior, but gets by on the strength of their netminder.

Now I'm not saying the Wings are inferior to these Pens. But let's face it, they're not routing them to the tune of 6-2 over two games. The guy who's made sure that's the goals ratio? Osgood. It feels so wonderful to have an elite goaltender. Have the Wings ever relied on one before? Sure Hasek was great in '02 but it's not like those Wings needed a goalie like that. This year we've depended on Ozzie though. And he's come through huge.

Goddam it's going to fill me with uncontrollable mirth when Little Gary calls his name for the Conn.

mrrrrr

Posting has been sparse as stress has increased. I feel okay about today's game. I feel okay about maybe not having Datsyuk or maybe having him at half-power. I feel okay The Anthem and the mighty Kane & Toews. Serious anxiety relating to our next opponent is growing, however.

Chief is right. We need Dats, at close to 100%, to derail Crosby and Malkin. It's not that I'm that scared about the Pens, it's just... okay, okay, need to stop thinking about next round. That's a jinx waiting to happen. This round.

Khabibulin, Huet, doesn't matter. Neither is superhero. All we need them to be is less-than-perfect. The penalty shitstorm was an idiosyncracy, the Kronwall call patently ridiculous. I'm not going to say Kronner hasn't thrown a borderline illegal hit or two in his career, but that was so not even close to one, as Babcock said, it's not even funny.

If anything this plays to the Wings advantage today. If Chicago wants "retribution", again Babcock put it best: we'd love to have a powerplay. The Wings' O is rolling. I don't know if Holmstrom has a point yet or not this series but his work in front of the net has won the Wings a couple of huge goals. When is the league going to start keeping track of screens? You get one for screening the goalie on a goal. Sounds like a legit stat to me. I mean, they track takeaways.

Not sure what else to say. The stress make me no talk good. make words go bad bad. tongue turn glue. expressions become... infelicitous.

go wings.

Fuck the Ducks

The Wings didn't put in the game they needed to. That doesn't excuse the shitty end of game behavior from the Ducks.

Does this mean anything? Anything? Colin Campbell? Bueller?

Backfire

I was steadily getting giddier and giddier watching the Hawks/Canucks series, as Chicago proved Luongo to be human again and again. The thought of playing against a team with no skill and a less-than-immortal goaltender thrilled me. Of course, my joy has turned to ashes in my mouth, as the Blackhawks and their shockingly potent offense are destined to be our Round 3 opponents. The thing that scares me about them is that they are too young and dumb to know how overmatched they are, or to remember how badly we spanked them in the regular season. And Byfuglien (that's pronounced buh-FUG-lee-ehn) looks like Pronger junior. Or, Sasquatchito, as they say south of the border.

All that remains is for the Griffs Wings to finish the deal.

And as for the round after? It's gotta be Ovechkin. Won't be as satisfying any other way.