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Abel to Yzerman

Rock Bottom?

by IwoCPO on 02/17/08 at 08:47 AM ET
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Jimmy Howard’s starting.  Chris Osgood’s irritated.  Mike Babcock’s talking about playing Boggle in the basement.  Brian Rafalski’s hurt. Cleary can’t eat, talk or play. Kronwall..who the hell knows when he’s coming back?  Dominik Hasek sounds like he’s been visiting Ottawa.  The Wings have lost five in a row.  BJ fans (and aren’t we all?)...sorry, Columbus fans, are mouthing off in the comment section. 

The wheels have come off. 

Right?

Nope.  Because nothing stops a losing streak like Marty Turco.

Goaltending.  I guess Uncle Mike figures that if he’s going to send Howard in after the first period (or during) then he may as well start the kid.  One less move, one less decision.  What the hell. Osgood surely understands.

Woops.
Sipple

“I always play good against Dallas, so, yeah, I would have liked to have played, but maybe he doesn’t know that,” Osgood said.

I don’t know if Uncle Mike knows that Ozzie.  But I know what he does know. 

“Sometimes you gotta play Scrabble,” Babcock said Saturday of the changes.

The H and W in “Howard” are going to get you more points than the G and all those O’s in “Osgood”.  Start Howard.  Makes sense.

Theoretically, it should make no difference who Babcock starts because Marty Turco will be at the other end. 

Dallas Morning News

Turco, who grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, knows about the Red Wings’ fan base. He said his hometown’s favorite teams hailed from Detroit.

“Because we got all of our network TV from Michigan, a lot of the fans in our town were for the Lions, the Tigers and the Red Wings,” Turco said. “Personally, I wasn’t a Red Wings fan.”

He’s lying, of course.  But we’ll leave that one alone today.  It should be a given that Turco will be fetal and sucking his thumb in the hall behind the Star bench by 1700 hours.  But nothing is certain anymore.  You know the world is out of whack when we can’t rely on a Wing win against Turco, and there’s no way you should be anticipating that today.  You can hope for it.  But hopin’ ain’t gettin’ and the Wings seem absolutely lost out there. 

And it’s not the February malaise, or an “implosion” in the Wing room.  It’s not, as I suspected, a tired team or a lack of leadership from the captain (as I mentioned in chat the other night).  It’s nothing as insidious as any of that.  This thing, this frigging belly ache of a losing streak, is due to one thing and it’s real simple.  I’ll let Dave at Gorilla Crouch point it out for you.

...what ails the Red Wings right now is pretty straight forward: injuries. The salary cap has exposed a team that simply doesn’t have much depth. Every team in the league is looking for secondary scoring and every team would like to have another top 4 defenseman. With that being the case the team that claws its way to a Stanley Cup is going to win the battle of attrition. 

You’ve lost two of your top three dmen, arguably your fourth best forward, your starting goaltender.  Injuries—and it’s looking like Kronwall’s absence is being felt more than anyone thought it would—have taken their toll and now we know how important it was for the Wings to have started the way they did. 

Looks like back on February 11th Ken Holland was lying to Ted Kulfan again.  Remember this?

Just talked to Ken Holland and it doesn’t sound there’s anything major concerning Hasek at all.

Yeah, well, umm, Dom on Friday didn’t sound so certain.

“I didn’t feel comfortable, for sure, on the ice,” Hasek said. “Once I feel better, I’ll get back on the ice. Hopefully, I’ll be back on the ice next week, but I’m not sure.”

In other words, he won’t play until he feels 100 percent. Not before.  Sounding almost Ottawa-like.

So you’ve lost five in a row.  You’re playing the hottest team in the West.  Your goalie’s been pulled the last two games and the defense looks slower than six Hatchers. You’re starting a kid even though your starter’s owned Dallas his whole career.  You can’t score even strength and your coach is playing Scrabble in the sauna. 

But don’t fret.  There’s always Turco. 

But that’s not going to be enough.  I’m thinking we’re looking at 6.

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