504 days later, hockey returns

Last night, the wins opened the preseason vs. Tampa Bay at home. There was no way for me to see this game, so I cannot tell you how the team looked, or what the atmosphere was like. I can tell you however, that the Red wings lost 5-3. The game was tied at two after two periods of play. The story changed forty-two seconds into the third period when Martin St. Louis scored to take the lead. They never looked back. Shortly after, in fact just over a min. later Evgeny Artyukhin scored to put Tampa up by two. This proved to be the game winning goal. While watching Sports Final Edition late Sunday night, Mike Babcock said something about the team being tired and need to re-energize. He said, "I think we need a game. We're going to play Tampa, take a day off and re-energize, then get at it. You could tell the wear and tear on the guys. Enough's enough. We gotta get going." Now for some reason hearing the phrases “We’re tired” and “we need to re-energize” kind of scares me. I’m hoping he meant we’re tired of playing ourselves, and just didn’t connect the two thoughts. A team of tired older men who have really only been skating for one week, should not be tired, or need to re-energize, in the real sense of that word. If this team is tired, let’s hope it’s just from being off for a year and because it is just after training camp. Let’s hope they aren’t tired as far as tired like a team is in late March, early April. If that’s the case, then we’re in real trouble. Could the loss last night be because the team was tired? Sure, it could have been. The game was tied until the beginning of the third period. Did the Wings just get tired at the end of the second period and just couldn’t hang on? Sure, it’s possible. Or, was it just a loss? I really wish I could tell you, but I’m just a poor teenager who can’t afford Wings tickets. If anyone was at the game, please let me know how the team looked. Let me know what you though.
     In other Red Wings news, Kenny Holland said yesterday that Gary Greenstin, Pavel Datsyuk’s agent contacted him and Pavel wants to play here in Detroit. Holland said the contract is being worked out and by the end of the weekend; Datsyuk should be a Red Wing again. This is good news for Red Wings fans. Last night after the game Holland said "Gary told me that Pavel has decided he wants to come back to Detroit. At this stage in the game, it looks as if Pavel is returning to Detroit unless something gets derailed here in the next 24 to 48 hours. Certainly it's an exciting day for the Red Wings." When Pavel Datsyuk was out of the mix fans were certainly worried. Pavel is one of those guys who you just count on to provide a lot of offense. As I’ve said before, Pavel could be the difference between a long successful playoff run, and no playoffs at all. I really and truly believe that. If nothing else Pavel can help decide those tie games with this new shootout system. Like Kenny Holland said, as long as nothing goes wrong, Wings fans just got lucky as far as the overall success of this year’s team.




Quotes thanks to: The Detroit News, The Detroit Free Press, and several other hockey websites.