Wings vs. Ducks pregame - De facto Series Preview

The last time the Red Wings played, there was a Farrah Fawcett poster in your bedroom.

Making the wait even more excruciating than it already was?  TTD will be in house.  The Game 1 recap will be our first live, eye-witness account of the season.  And if the Joe looked like it was shaking for an opening rounder against Columbus, we can only imagine the atmosphere with the Du.....

(sorry, Anaheim just took another penalty, hold on)

with the Ducks in town.  We're stoked.

*****

Randy Carlyle tells his players to stay out of the infraction cubicle thing. (LA Times)

"He really uses only one way to say it," Niedermayer said.

In words that can't be printed in polite publications or posted on family websites?

"Exactly," Niedermayer said, smiling.

That's probably for the best.  This is going to be a special teams series through and through.  But to only acknowledge the Wings' power play would be a mistake -- the Ducks had the league's 5th best power play during the regular season; Teemu Selannee netted 16 of his 27 goals with the man advantage.  And, um, the Wings let the lowly BJ power play roar to life at the end of Round 1, this after Columbus threw up the worst PP% in the league in '08/'09.  Hopefully that was an aberration.

Also,

It's worth pointing out that the L.A. Times has a "Helene" on their staff (Helene Elliott)

April 27 ... "While players gathered at the Honda Center to discuss strategy for Game 6 of their playoff series against the San Jose Sharks and their second chance to upset the NHL's top-seeded team, right wing Teemu Selanne and center Andrew Ebbett held their own private chat."

It just looks too weird seeing a story start with "Helene" and not have like a, "I just spoke to George Paros via Facebook, and he told me ..."

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The Ducks went 10-2-1 down the stretch, got healthy, knocked off Todd's team, and are looking like anything but an 8-seed.  Jonas Hiller is the newest product of the Jason Voorhees Goalie Camp, wherein a seemingly immortal giant in large pads comes out of nowhere to look into the eyes of every single Red Wings fan, even the women and children (assholes, these people are), and threaten to rape our dreams right out from under us.  We keep reading comments about how he'll crack, how he doesn't move well enough laterally, etc.  Fuck that.  This is the Stanley Cup Fucking Playoffs, and this is the Ducks vs. the Wings -- do you honestly mean to say you're not even a tiny bit scared that this guy's already in that full-on 2003 Giguere mode?  Even a little bit?

He sees the puck very well in traffic.  He stays square.  Rebounds are an endangered species in his territory.  And most importantly, he has an audio-induced orgasm during the national anthems before each game.

Yes, it's up to him to carry them to the Conference Finals, but this is a big, physical, veteran group of dudes who are light years ahead of Columbus on the experience scale.  Their top line of Ryan, Getzlaf, and Dick Sneeze will be the offensive life blood that they need to advance.  If Z's line cancels them out, and the Wings themselves don't get hurt on the penalty kill, it will be a steep and icy hill for Anaheim to climb -- one in which they would assuredly catch typhoid and resort to drop kicking Wing players with the intent to murder.

And the Draper thing.  No fucking clue.  He's out for the first two games, which is furthering the speculation that whatever it is must be horrible and nothing we want to hear anyway.  Probably a cracked testicle or something disgusting like that.

The good thing is, we're not losing this bitch because of ol' Fire Crotch.  We'll lose if the Ducks can squeeze the life out of us, causing the forwards to go impotent and relinquish that physical demeanor they switched to once the playoffs started.  But that won't happen.

We'll lose if Hiller only sees shots from outside the circles.  But that won't happen either.  Homer, Mule and Cleary are going to gangbang Jonas back to Switzerland, crashing the net every game of the series, never letting up for a second.  Ideally, he'll lose his cool around Game 4 and the series will be in the Wings collective hands.

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Series Prediction:

The Wings will drop the first at home, because we'll be in attendance.  Murphy's Law 101.  Easiest prediction in history.

Games 2 through 4 will be all Detroit, as the Wings surprise the Anaheim crowd by stealing two at the Ponda.  Game 3 will go OT, and the Wings will win it on a power play after Pronger eats Jiri Hudler.

Game 5 will bring the obligatory Sunday afternoon Joe Louis collapse on Versus.  This blog will melt and our computers will be ruined.

After re-emerging with a new blog named, "dkfasjdf;iaj;ckvma;kfjd", we'll look on as the Wings close out Game 6 and restore order in the universe.  

*****

Despite the Hawk's little hiccup toni, they'll beat Vancouver and we'll have our Original 6 conference final.  Pens over the Caps, and the Canes will upend the B's.

Relax, it's not real (that's a complete lie.)

Go Wings.