Because we haven't been able to say this much over the entire lifespan of this Website, please take the next sentence as serious as you can.
The St. Louis Blues travel to Detroit to face the Red Wings in a battle for first place in the Central Division.
Reading that, does it make you forget about the last week's worth of games where the Blues stumbled, crumbled and limped to four straight winless games (one shootout loss)? It was worth a try.
The Blues have a difficult task on deck for tonight with first place Detroit (atop the division standings, unemployment and murders - hat trick!). In their last 10 games, the Wings are 8-2-0. They're giving up 2.4 goals a game, almost identical to the Blues' 2.38. But they're scoring 3.4 goals a game, almost a full goal more a game than St. Louis' 2.44. What's worse, the Wings have a better power play (shocker) and penalty kill. I can hear the contempt flowing from the foreclosed homes around the Detroit area. "Same old Blues."
But here's the thing that the Wingnuts need to keep in mind. After one of the roughest weeks for this franchise in recent memory, a regulation win still gives the Blues 23 points, the same total as Detroit, and an early edge on the first tiebreaker, head-to-head record. You think our team sucks? Check the standings, fucko.
The medical staff continues to play a huge role for this team. David Perron still hasn't started skating after Joe Thornton launched him into Never Never Land almost two weeks ago. How did that dude come back and play, scoring later in the game and then not be able to exercise without the symptoms coming back? Scary stuff, friends.
The Carlo Colaiacovo experience had a goal in his return from concussion-like symptoms. It would be nice to see Barret Jackman come back from a knee injury to give some more experience to the green blueliners. Obviously Roman Polak and T.J. Oshie will continue to miss considerable time recovering from surgeries.
There are lots of questions about these Blues right now. Will they score enough goals to compete against the Red Wings? Who's next to get hurt, the organist? How many times will we see six or more goals scored against this young defense? Where's Waldo?
All valid, all concerning. But none are as important as answering this question: What's up, Halak? Over his last five games with the oldest first, he's allowed the following number of goals per game: 0, 1, 4, 2, 6. Following the same trend, his save percentages in those games: 100, 97.1, 73.3, 92.3, 73.9.
So he's due for a two-goal, 93-percent performance tonight, right? Don't answer that. If there's a Halakness Monster sighting, get ready for a fun game. I don't want to ponder the alternative.
One side note: we don't always talk about the other team's blog here on the SBN family of bloggy blogs (some of them are kind of different than us, but that's...ok), but it's interesting how a minor change makes a site more interesting. Over at Winging It In Motown, the former in charge person didn't used to allow the curse words. Well that's fucking changed, and frankly it's for the better. Now if they could just do something about all the Red Wings fans that hang out there and the site would be awesome. You might stop and say hello and offer an early Thanksgiving greeting. Or, just leave a simple "Fuck Detroit." You know, if you aren't banned for life there or something.
Alright boys and girls, this is your game day thread for the first Detroit game of the year. You should remember what to do.