Above the Fold - The Red Wings are damn good

With the near hysteria over the Lions 6-2 record, the start of the Pistons season, and the Tigers early aggression in the hot stove league, the Detroit Red Wings are skating well under most fans radar. I know they've been under mine.

I was able to watch much of last night's quite entertaining Red Wings 3-2 shootout victory over the team that would have to be the closest the Red Wings have to a bitter rival, the Nashville Predators. Seeing the Wings own Wonder Twins, Pavel Datsuk and Henrik Zetterberg, win the shootout with beautiful dekes, I finally realized what I was missing.

Also being lost in the shuffle is the marvelous start for Zetterburg. He's has a 15 game scoring streak, and a very hot girlfriend. Life is good for Hank...

And how about the pride of all the downriver puck bunnies, Chris Osgood? After posting another win in goal last night, he's a startling 8-0-0 this season.

Thank god for the Red Wings bloggers, who seem to be more in touch with the pulse of the Red Wings than the MSM. I know that's where I'm getting the vast majority of my needed Red Wings fix.

Cristy of Winging it in Motown, reminds us just how great of a start Hank is off to...

Zetterberg did not score during the game, but he did earn an assist on Jiri Hudler's goal extending his scoring streak to 15 games, a franchise record for a point in consecutive games to start a season. He's scored 12 goals and notched 13 assists in those 15 games.

Even with the fast start, there is some controversy regarding the Wings lines. On the Wings talks about Mike Babcock's bizarre treatment of Jiri Hudler, despite doing everything he's been asked, was demoted to checking line duty.

Mike Babcock has bumped Jiri Hudler off the second line in favor of Johan Franzen, despite having scored twice in the last three games, including the game-winner in Vancouver. So, he’s getting going and that earns him a demotion?

Over the two games since his return from a knee injury, Franzen has zero points and only two shots. So, at this moment in time, Hudler is out-performing him. Why is Johan the one moving up, then?

The Detroit sports blog with the strangest name, Gorilla Crouch, has a nice recap of the game. Dave also points us to where you can find the game's highlights online, which is always much appreciated, as I had no idea...

Detroit still sits atop the Western division with 25 points and is 1 point behind Ottawa for the best point total in the league. The Blackhawks did the Red Wings a favor by knocking off Columbus last night to open up a 7-point cushion on the rest of the division. Detroit will have a chance to build upon that lead on Friday when they play the BJs at JLA.

Unfortunately for Abel to Yzerman's readers, but fortunately for the nation, the Chief is busy saving the world, thanks to his gig in the military, and is away from his PC this week. So I'm going to link to an A2Y post (with a reader poll) from last week that had me pondering something that had never crossed my mind. Is Chris Osgood hall of fame worthy? He also takes his daily, and always welcome, shot at Nordalanche fans.

If he were a Dive, Chris Osgood would have had his jersey retired after his rookie year. Heck, if he were a Dive the “fans” would expect him to lead off a shootout because they think that if a goalie scores you get two goals instead of one, then they can add that to the amount of saves he had in the final minute of regulation and come up with a reason to throw their hats on the ice.

At Yzerman is God, Pete rips into the NHL for their bizarre scheduling practices. Any rip pointed towards the clueless NHL A-OK in my book...

So I'm finally getting around to seeing games, getting a feel for the team again, enjoying the hell out of watching Z, Dats, and Homer make the rest of the league look stupid, to say nothing of Chris Osgood. And then what? A week off. The fuck? What kind of scheduling is that? Six days between games? Does that normally happen or am I overreacting?

That's "Above the Fold" for Thursday, 11-8-07!