Jan 2 :: IN YOUR FACE, SPACE COYOTE!

First things first, Christy Hammond of Winging it in Motown — and formerly of On the Wings and Behind the Jersey — is hanging up her blogging skates and moving onto greener pastures. I’d like to take a real quick second to wish her nothing but the best and thank her for warmly welcoming me to WIM. I can’t wait to see her ’round the water cooler (and by water cooler I mean… comments sections). Go get ’em, Christy.

The Red Wings and Phoenix Coyotes meet for the third time this season. Saturday, 8pm, Phoenix.

1. Dude, for real. Jimmy Howard is the starting goaltender for the Detroit Red Wings.

2. The Wings put up a great effort against a good team on Thursday. Let’s hope they start 2010 the way they ended 2009.

3. Todd Bertuzzi has gone two whole games without scoring two goals. Psh.

The last time these squads met was December 14th at the Joe. The Red Wings skated away with a 3-2 victory, on the heels of goals from (wait for it…) Patrick Eaves, Derek Meech, and Kris Newbury. Say what? Jimmy Howard was in net for that one, too, and Darren Helm was missing his first game with a wrist injury.

Ericsson and Zetterberg have gone down with injuries, but Valtteri Filppula has returned. The Wings are 3-3-1 since then, and have been shutout three times. Scheize.

We covered this a few weeks ago, but here’s a refresher: Robert “Lazy and he Sucks” Lang now plays for the Desert Dogs – as does new acquisition and former Red Wing Anders Eriksson. Brad May and Dan Cleary (neither of whom will be playing in this game) are former Yotes. And the best name nominee is Zbynek Michalek.

–Detroit defeated Colorado, 4-2, on Thursday

–Phoenix lost in a shootout to San Jose, 3-2, also on Thursday. Before that, the Coyotes had won ten straight games at home, a franchise record.

–Detroit Red Wings :: 20-14-6 (3rd in Central, 10th in West) :: 7-7-4 on the road.

–Hamilton BlackBerries :: 25-13-4 (2nd in Pacific, 4th in West) :: 16-5-1 at home.

Shane Doan (who has fallen out of favor with Tyler) :: Matt Lombardi :: Scottie Upshall :: Ilya Bryzgalov :: Ed Jovanovski :: Keith Yandle

Brad May is out with a lower body injury (probably in the lady parts). Patrick Eaves is back in. Mattias Ritola is still up. Dan Cleary, Henrik Zetterberg, and Niklas Kronwall are all skating. My back hurts.

Bertuzzi — Datsyuk — Holmstrom

Ritola — Filppula — Miller

Draper — Helm — Eaves

Maltby — Abdelkader — Leino

Lidstrom — Rafalski

Lebda — Stuart

Meech — Janik

Howard (starts)

Osgood

Jason “Like Agnes, Agatha, Jermaine, and Jack” Williams

Niklas “Oh Snap! Guess What I Saw” Kronwall

Jonathan “I Was So In Shock, My Heart Went Down South” Ericsson

1. Welcome, Twenty Ten. May you bring more happy tidings than 2009 left the Wings. Start the way the ’09 ended, and we’ll love you more than ’09.

2. Flip looks good in his few games back. With Zetterberg close to returning, and Pavel not doing a whole lot to “take over,” will Val take advantage and build on the last game – a strong one – and be the guy against the Coyotes.

3. This game begins a five-game road trip, so if the Wings can get seven or more points out of it, we should all be thrilled. Anaheim, LA, and San Jose won’t be any easier, so a strong game — one that is put to bed rather early to rest some guys — would be super swell.

4. Mattias Ritola came on strong in the second and third periods of Thursday’s game – so if he can start the way he finished, he looks to be quite the player.

5. Jimmy Howard playing his fifth in a row. In his current stretch of back-to-back starts, he’s 2-1-1, with a GAA of 1.73. Eat it, Quick.

It still feels good to beat the Avalanche, and ring in the new year the right way.

YOTE WE COVET (JJ Special)

It was Peter Mueller last time, thanks to his skill set. In the comments of the last Coyotes game, JJ had this to add:

The above quote proves that the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads – they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.