Sorry - but it's all hockey today!

The Hockey Season opened with a bang – at least here in Detroit! The Wings kicked the Blues' sorry butts with a 5-1 win. We chased their new goalie (for whom they dumped our Chris Osgood) Patrick Lalime out of the net after the fourth goal in two periods. Now the only goalie I ever felt good about chasing out of the net was Patrick Roy (no offense, Heather). Oh, and maybe Eddie Belfour. Anyway, I felt sorry for Lalime and was relieved when we got another goal (I think it helps to make the pulled goalie feel better when his replacement also gives up a goal) on Reinhard Divis. We play the Blues again tonight – this time at the Savvis Center. It'll be interesting to see what happens tonight as yesterday's game got a little testy and there was a fight with ten minutes remaining.

Oh, and because I made such a fuss about keeping Shanahan over McCarty, I must confess that if Brendan plays all season the way he played last night, I will consider forgiving Ken Holland for that move. Shanny was actually going into corners to get pucks, he was skating like it was the first game of the season ;-) and he even defended Pavel Datsyuk (Shireen Saski: It's pronounced Pavel DAT-SOOK, not Dat-SUK, okay?) when Tkachuk put a not very nice hit on him. Anyway, I had to give Shanny his props since I was so vehemently against him in the off-season. But I'm withholding complete absolution of his past sins until I see him play a bit more.

It was nice to see that the Wings still had their penalty killing going at top speed. Sometimes, I actually welcome the penalty because it seems that they play better when they're short a man. Crap, in the first penalty kill last night the Wings had TWO shots on goals while the Blues who were ostensibly on the power play had ZERO.

We have a number of new players on the team and since I had to miss the first period and the home opening ceremonies (don't worry, they're taped, I'll watch them today before the game) because I was at my friend's fundraiser I had no clue to whom Mickey and Ken were referring when they talked about Cleary, Lilja, Franzen, Lebda. Whereas in the past we were know for having the Russian Five (Fetisov, Larionov, Fedorov, Konstantinov and Kozlov) we now have ONE Russian (so sad) but have stocked up on Swedes (Samuelsson, Lidstrom, Holmstrom, Franzen, Lilja, Kronwall and Zetterberg). Good thing I likes the Swedes – except for Forsberg. I don’t care how talented he is, he's dirty player and I'm glad that he's gone to the Eastern Conference so we won't have to see him but one time in January (and that's if he's not hurt).

I turned the game on as soon as I got in my car to head home from the fundraiser and it was perfect timing as Mathieu Schneider scored moments later. I had forgotten how much I love hockey and my Red Wings. Hell, the St. Louis Blues are my second favorite team (although I think they made a big mistake getting rid of Chris Pronger and Pavol Demitra and keeping Keith Tkachuk and Doug Weight), but it did not detract from the Wings' win because when the Wings are #1 while the Blues are a very distant 2nd – you know, WAY DOWN HERE. The owners of the Blues trying to sell their team and that pisses me off because they blamed the lockout, etc. and if they were to look in the mirror honestly, they would acknowledge that they were part of the problem of big-time spending for big-time players and then not going far enough into the playoffs to pay it off. Sure, Mike Illitch of the Red Wings used to do that, but he could afford it. And he also has a good GM in place that is very good at spending the big-time money for the RIGHT big-time people. Granted the Blues weren't as bad as the Rangers who went after big names and offered big money without any thought to the chemistry of the team and they haven't made the playoffs in forever because of it. And I laughed every time. Damn, I hate the Rangers.

And the poll today is: How long until Eric Lindros is injured? For being such a big man, he's certainly fragile.