On Red Wings

Without MVP goalie Jimmy Howard this year, the Wings are out of the playoffs.

I’m looking forward to the Wings’s game this afternoon (12:30 p.m., NBC) with the (and it hurts to say it) Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Penguins, of course, came back from a 3-games-to-2-down deficit in the the Cup finals against the Wings with a pair of 1-goal victories, the deciding 7th in Hockeytown, to win the Cup, get the video, and the NHL’s everlasting gratitude to have Sid’s Boys and not the Wings to promote this year.

I can still see the turnovers for Brad Stuart and Michael Samuelsson that led to both of Max Talbot‘s goals in the instant replay of my mind.

Last night was one of those evenings that the currently 9th-place Wings lost ground while standing still. All the teams ahead of the Wings that played, with the exception of Chicago, won: Calgary, Nashville, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Vancouver and San Jose. At least there weren’t any 3-point games by conference rivals. Still, ouch.

The Wings aren’t going to catch Chicago or San Jose this season, and a Pacific Conference team will finish third. That means the best the Wings can hope for this season is fourth, currently eight points out of reach. To get there, the Wings will need a one of those Caps-or-Sens-like nine-game winning streaks. Possible? Yes. Probable? The Mood Meter is cloudy on that.

This entry was posted on January 31, 2010 at 6:41 am and is filed under Red Wings with tags Stuart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.