Conference Quarterfinals, Game 2

On By TheTripleDeke

Hi again. My name is Tyler and I usually write elsewhere, but I was out sleepwalking and ended up here in this weird WordPress land that smells like Ted Lindsay’s garage and stale curly fries. Let’s talk about hockey.

The Red Wings went down to Nashville and will leave with few complaints, getting a split by holding off the Predators by the familiar score of 3-2. A few bulleted thoughts on this victorious night:

  • Here I am, an original ConTuzzi card-carrying member in the Home that ConTuzzi Built — but I’m cheering like a total maniac as Bert waits only about one minute before taking Shea Weber to task. I was shamelessly thrilled. Apologies to fans of any other team reading this who are thinking, “So what, you’re describing hockey,” but we Wings fans don’t get to see this everyday. We’ve seen like two retribution fights in the last decade; one of which (against Weber, but whatever) resulted in a guy having his brain do that Alex Mack-transforming-into-liquid thing and then it re-emerged as Jonathan Ericsson. And the other fight was probably just something I made up and colored on a placemat at Red Lobster.
  • While you were reading that last paragraph, Shea Weber just sneezed and shat out a spare $2,500 dollar bill.
  • Only other Weber bullet, I promise maybe: My favorite or least favorite part of the whole thing was that 99.9% of the entire Twitterverse, Blogosphere, TV Land, Burger King Kids Club and Thunderdome thought that a one game suspension was a reasonable and necessary punishment (even the sane Preds fans were nodding along with that sentiment), and yet when the decision was made to not suspend him, it was the most predictable thing to ever happen. Everyone else who wasn’t making an apples-to-oranges comparison to Todd Bertuzzi thought that the measly $2,500 fine was a mound of hilarious trash. Well, except those TSN guys who said it was a “hockey play”. I don’t get TSN so I wasn’t aware that their staff had been replaced by the Vancouver Canucks.
  • Who needed a goal or something good to happen to them more than Ian White and our 4th line? That both parties accomplished that on the Wings first goal was great to see. Let’s hope this is the start of a long, playoff highlight reel for Ian White that fans of his next team will enjoy when he’s playing for his 18th team in three years in 2013.
  • I know, I’m just kidding about White. It’ll be more like his 14th team.
  • Another huge mental boost came in the form of killing off a 5-on-3 penalty early on in the 2nd period, this against the league’s #1 power play, which features a guy who for some reason is allowed to stand at the blue line with a shotgun and fire at a half-dozen or so people standing in his way. He’s going to kill somebody some day, I’m not even kidding.
  • Part of that 5-on-3 was Ericsson’s responsibility, who was called for tripping. The Red Wings were able to kill off the penalty with one of their best penalty killers in the box, and nearby Pennsylvania towns could faintly hear Michael Petrella cackle with hysterical laughter. Don’t tell him, but for Petrella’s birthday I’m getting him this, except it’ll be Ericsson’s body and Petrella’s brain. Then he’ll get to control Ericsson’s body and make him do silly things like where wear his shoes on the wrong feet and mix red shirts in with his white laundry. It’s too bad that I have to murder two people to make this happen, but it’s the thought that counts.
  • The Predators were without defenseman Hal Gill, which was great for Jiri Hudler. That wasn’t a dive he took in Game 1 — that was Jiri falling out of Hal Gill’s orbit and tumbling through space.
  • Carrie Underwood reportedly is not thrilled with the idea of husband Mike Fisher growing a huge playoff beard. Holy jinxing fuck, Carrie. Thanks in advance.
  • Dan Cleary is a hoss. Hasn’t had the greatest of seasons to this point, and I’ve taken my fair share of cracks at him, but he was a bull on the forecheck late into the game. My question is: if he looks this great now, why wasn’t he shooting up before every game this year? How dangerous can it be, right? You have two knees, that means you use one of them and the other one is for looks, fancy tea parties and bar mitzvahs. Just shoot that shit up with concrete and glue everything together, it can’t be that complicated. Hell put steroids in there. Anything to make me not think about his fucking creepy eyes.
  • Franzen may have got credit for the actual goal, but congratulations to Brad Stuart on scoring his first career Brad Stuart Goal. Every other time, it’s been the other team who scores the Brad Stuart Goals — the ones that ricochet off of Brad’s ankles and into the back of the net, leading to him yelling and slamming his stick on the ice. I don’t know what happens or what it’s even called when Brad Stuart scores a regular, clean goal, but I vote that we name it “The Three Stooges” because it’s something that nobody will ever see.

Hey let’s all go to JLA Sunday and get all rowdy and junk.

Go Wings.