First Place! Yay?

A special apology to my fans - both of you - for the long lapse in entries. But as the playoffs approach (only 2 games left in the regular season), I imagine that the posts will be more frequent.

Tonight the Wings won again against the Jackets, and the two games they've got left are against the Blackhawks. They've taken first place in the West, but it's not clear if they'll hang on to it - particularly since the Hawks now have Williams and managed to beat the Predators tonight. The good news is that the team continues to find ways to win, particularly against good teams. The bad news is that many of the guys - in particular, Holmstrom - are streaky, so let's hope they streak come playoff time. Personally, I'd prefer to not see the Wings paired up against Calgary the first round - enough of eighth seed goalies who can steal the show. Let's hope that they match up against Minnesota or even Dallas.

Tonight's game was won by Calder and Bertuzzi (plus an empty-netter by Drapes), who added exactly what they've been asked to contirbute - depth. It's looking more and more likely that the Wings could take the Western conference, which up until the last few postseasons was considered a good thing, and they'll need to roll four lines that are all clicking to win the Cup.

A few other random notes... it's been great fun watching guys trying to check Bertuzzi. It's been years since the Wings had someone of his size, and the Jackets will think twice about checking him after one of their defencemen injured a hip while checking (or more accurately - bouncing off) Bertuzzi. Also, Hull really stuck his foot in his mouth suggesting that Datsuyk wanted to go play in DC with Ovenchkin. Pav is close to locking Kenny Holland into a $5 or $6 mil contract after negotiating for six months... I doubt he'll leave if he gets offered anything close to those numbers.