Oct 12 :: If You Spew, Spew Into This

On By mpetrella

THIS JUST IN…
Busy day in Red Wings Nation.
:: First, and easily the most important, Kirk Maltby has played his final game — and will accept a scouting position with the Red Wings. There goes one of the hardest noses, and baddest asses, that ever played our game.
:: Kris Draper was placed on short-term injury reserve, retroactive to last week. His salary doesn’t come off the books with STIR, but it opens up a spot on the roster, which was necessary to call up DOUGIE JANIK! because…
:: Brian Rafalski is having his knee scoped at noon tomorrow. He’s been experiencing some discomfort and they’re going to go in there and check it out. He shouldn’t be out too long, but expect Janik to be in Detroit until Rafalski’s healthy enough to be re-inserted into the lineup (or until Shitbox stops crying).

WHAT’S ALL THIS THEN?
Our boys play their third of season — and the first Wings Wings Tuesday! Go get those Blazin’ and Sweet Teriyaki wings from your local B-Dubs. Ranch. Bleu Cheese if gross. Puckdrop is at 7:30 — where it belongs.

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
Dude, who made this schedule? Ducks, Hawks, Avalanche. It’s like getting all of the hatred out of the way nice and early. The Wings are rolling, 2-0, thoroughly dismantling and ass-whomping the Ducks before winning a dog-fight (on the scoreboard, anyway) with the Hawks. Each netminder is 1-0, Pavel Datsyuk has a goal and a fighting major on the season, Mike Modano looks like he hit his stride right away, the second line has accounted for 57% of the team’s goals this season. The aristocrats.

NOW WHERE WERE WE?
The Wings and Avs last played one another on March 1st. It was a 3-2 win for the good guys, and your goal scorers were Tomas Holmstrom, Nicklas Lidstrom, and Johan Franzen. Jimmy Howard was in net — and it was Andreas Lilja’s first game back.

OH, HI AGAIN.
Kyle Quincey is a member of the Avs. Hey, did you know he was waived in favor of Derek Meech and Chris Chelios? Boy, oh, boy that Ken Holland really needs to take a class from all of us armchair GMs. Jokes. I haz them.

MEMBA ME?!
Ruslan Salei was a Colorado Avalanche for the past three seasons.

BEST NAME NOMINEE
For our very own Chris Hollis, and our Norwegian friend Andy, we have to choose Jonas Holos. If this were 1995, and Chris Hollis was anything like I would be, he’d totally trade for Holos just so he could hear Jim Hughson call his name during the play-by-play.

THEIR LAST GAMES
:: The Wings beat the Hawks 3-2 after their totally lame banner raising ceremony. One would think there were fewer cello solos following the game than there were before it.
:: Colorado played on Monday night, also after a banner raising ceremony — this time in Philadelphia, where apparently you celebrate abject Leastern Conference failure. Philly won that game 4-2.

EXPECTED LINEUP

Datsyuk — Zetterberg — Holmstrom
Franzen — Filppula — Bertuzzi
Hudler — Modano — Cleary
Miller — Helm — Eaves

Lidstrom — Stuart
Kronwall — Janik
Kindl — Salei

Howard
Osgood

Injuries [thanks to @jennyquarx for the nickname idea]
Brian “Little. Yellow. Different.” Rafalski
Kris “Dick York. Dick Sergeant. Sergeant York. Wow, That’s Weird” Draper (groin)
Justin “Ribbed For Her Pleasure” Abdelkader (ribs <–see what I did there?)
Jonathan “I Once Thought I Had Mono For An Entire Year” Ericsson (back)

Honorable Mentions
Todd “If He Were an Ice Cream Flavor, He’d Be Pralines and Dick” Bertuzzi
Todd “Asphynctersayswhat” Bertuzzi
Todd “If It’s a Severed Head, I’m Going to Be Very Upset” Bertuzzi
Darren “Like When We Used to Climb The Rope in Gym Class” Helm
Pavel “Ex-squeeze Me? Baking Powder?” Datsyuk
Jiri “How About Fffff, You’re a Giiiiimp” Hudler
Ville “Hi. I’m in…Delaware” Leino
Mikael “I Don’t Even Own AH Gun” Samuelsson
Brendan “CAR!…. Game On!” Witt
Chris “LIVE IN THE NOW” Chelios

QUICK THOUGHTS
1. Howard’s second start, following a shutout in the opener. That’ll do.
2. And so it begins… we lost Draper and Abdelkader in the pre-season, Ericsson in the first period of the season, and now Brian Rafalski goes down to injury. Thank all that’s holy for TPL HERO #1 DOUG JANIK!
3. On the most recent TP:60 episode, we all took turns calling out a player that we’d like to see be more noticeable, and I picked Zetterberg simply by default. Everyone else has a tagline this season, and I’d like to see Curly Fries earn us some curly fries.

WHAT WE LEARNED AGAINST THE HAWKS
U2 isn’t an appropriate pump-up band. Who knew?