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Abel to Yzerman

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At The Quarter Pole

by IwoCPO on 11/20/07 at 11:11 AM ET
Comments (18)

That’s the cool phrase these days.  “At the pole...” Not a big fan.  Not a big fan at all.  Not real sure I like the connotations involved with that.  Also pretty sure I hate Bob Dylan.  To quote Stu Nahan in Rocky II, “how this fighter of such limited ability has gained such popularity is a mystery.” Same goes for Dylan.  Oh, he’s a poet.  A lyrical magician who was able to express the angst of a nation a turbulent time.

Whatever.  That voice makes me want to drive over a cliff.  Oh, but you’re saying, Rocky references and music critiques are not the bread and butter of this foblog.  Why must you?  Why do we always have to sift through the crap to get to the hard-hitting hockey analsysis?  The fact-based, late breaking, well-researched and equally well-considered viewpoints that cut to the very core of Red Wing hockey?  Oh yeah.  Well, ok.

In a minute.  First.  Bastard Gramps likes to antagonize me.  He’s my blogging conscience.  Take two weeks to go do the nation’s work and I’m met with skepticism.

I am not as trusting as most bloggers who tend to just accept that
you are the person you are trying to be in the cyber..
There is something funny here....

“I always wanted to be called Duke”

?

NEW ZEALAND

And that Navy thing…
It could be a great cover.

Is he someones secret agent ?

Don’t miss next years draft,,,pay attention in the early rounds.

If the Red Wings try to beef up their defense by drafting an unknown
Maori tribal leader
well....
You’ll know who is signing Dukes paychecks

Number 1:  Duke is a cool name. My favorite Uncle’s name is Duke and I’ll tell you this, nobody messed with him.  He’s the one who grabbed me out of second grade and took me to opening day 1977 at Tiger Stadium to watch Fydrich pitch.  He’s also the one who said, “hold on Billy,” then got out of the car at a stoplight and pummeled the guy behind us who honked when the light turned green.  I won’t even tell you about his every-other year trips to Columbus to crash the OSU parties on the eve of the UM games.

Number 2: Those Maori’s should all be called Duke.  Badasses.

20 games in and we’ve got ourselves a goalie controversy.  Told you. Told you. Told you.  I frigging told every one of you there’d be one and you all scoffed from your ivory towers (Tenacious D reference).  Well looky here.  20 games in (at the pole, if you will) and Chris Osgood is unquestionably the better option.  Hell, 20 games in and he’s a better option than 28 other starting goalies.  Do I believe he’s the right option? Ehhhhh.  Not so sure.  But, I’ll tell you this: Dominik Hasek is not going to steal us any games, and letting in 5 goals in 15 shots on multiple occasions is only going to lose them for us.

Yes, he’s a slow starter.  Yes, he’s been hurt.  Yes, I’ve been gone so it’s really not fair for me to judge.  Our boy Teddy Kulfan can, but he won’t.  That would require an opinion and John Hahn won’t let him have one.  So he turned to Bill Clement.

“He hasn’t made the big save,” said Bill Clement, Sportsnet hockey analyst. “But given the elite athlete he is, I can’t help but believe he’s going to find his way out of this. I can’t believe the ‘slide’ would be this quick and dramatic.”

It hasn’t been quick and it hasn’t been dramatic.  Hasek wasn’t “Hasek” in 2002.  That team would have won with Darren Garcia in goal.  After an almost full year of excellence in Ottawa, he showed flashes of domination last year, and claimed his level of motivation going in this year would be unrivaled.  I don’t doubt that.  He’s insane, after all.  But I don’t believe, for a second, that we’ll see anything better than mediocrity to good goaltending out of him the rest of this year. 

Oh, but if he’s healthy and if he gets ten games under his belt, if he’s rested, if he’s confident and comfortable...if, if, if.  When is there going to be a time that all those factors combine to bring us the Hasek who will be a difference maker?  Do you really expect that to happen at 42?  C’mon.  The organ-I-zation is trying to milk one more year out of a decaying legend and Ken Holland’s damn lucky Osgood has some sort of emotional tie to Detroit.

“He’s our No. 1 goalie,” Babcock said.

Let me, if you don’t mind, expand on that.

MBCQOTD

“I’m 39.  He’s 42.  That’s 6 years I’ve got on him and I can tell you age doesn’t matter because age is all in the mind.  There’s no age in a groin. How old is your groin Ansar?  Do you know?  Did you count the rings?  Do groins age in dog years? If you were to cut open a Sycamore and sit on the stump with your back to the world would anyone wonder about whether you could make a kick save against Chicago?  See my point? Dom’s my number 1 but I don’t know when he’s starting again.”

Chris Osgood starts in goal come playoff time.  If he’s healthy.  We lucked out with Hasek last year, but there’s no way you get two consecutive seasons of calm out of the Czech Miracle of Insanity.  Not gonna happen.

Interesting.  A deliberate stance from within the Wing room in terms of how they’re describing Gary’s Central. 

“As you see in our division and in the league, we’re all the same. It’s unbelievable"--Babcock

“We got to start playing a lot better than we have of late to be successful in our division."--Osgood

Yeah. I suppose.  I suppose it’s ok to say after twenty games that the Central is the new league elite, that a turnaround of this magnitude in one season is possible, if not expected considering the talent in Chicago, the coaching in Columbus, the relaxed incest laws in Nashville and the bitterness-driven motivation to win in St. Louis.

But let’s not get all crazy just yet.  IF the playoffs started today, at the pole, four of Gary’s teams would be in, with the glorious BJ’s only a point behind the poultry.  Five Central teams in the playoffs? I see it as more likely that two get in.  Nashville and St. Louis hold the 7 and 8 spots now, with Dallas and Calgary lurking on the outside.  Flip flop those four and you have a more realistic glimpse.  To tell you the truth, I’m not even convinced Chicago’s a lock for the postseason, but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt based on the fact that they’ve, ummm, kinda treated us like their bitches.

How about, since we’re riding that quarter pole, some extrapolation?  Cool with you?  Excellent.

Zetterberg: 52 goals
Homer: 44
Draper: 20
Hudler: 20
Cleary: 24

Nice, eh?  We’d all take those totals.  Our children would frolic in the warm June sunshine while we made silly faces in our reflections on the Cup.  Unless more extrapolation brings us…

Kopecky: 0
Franzen: 0
Samuelsson: 8
Datsyuk: 16

Aha.  Datsyuk.  Would we be satisfied with 16 goals if that meant 65 assists and an 81 point season?  Most likely.  Franzen?  Oh, Mike will tell you there’s much more that he brings to the table and it’s hard to argue with that.  Samuelsson: slumping because that’s what he does.  Consistently.

The real question is this: what happens when/if Zetterberg goes down?  That’s got to be a prospect that keeps Ken Holland up late at night watching hairplug infomercials and dialing GMs.  Because no matter our record after twenty, there is still a desperate--well, serious--need for one more scorer.  This year, more than any other, could be the one where the deadline makes or breaks the Wings.  Extrapolations aside: Draper’s not getting 20.  Hudler and Cleary? Maybe.

Mandate to Kenny: Gotta get a scorer.  Not a wuzzi one who may or may not help the team.  Not an 8th defenseman.  Not a fighter.  One more scorer and maybe well before the deadline. 

So that’s where I am today.  Recap? Sure.  Real quick: Dylan sucks.  Hasek’s on borrowed time as “the starter”.  Maori Dukes are scary.  Gramps is misguided.  The Central’s better, but not great. Zetterberg’s got a Hart in him but only if he stays healthy and there’s no guarantee of that.  And we need a scoring winger for Christmas.

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