Naturally, because he's the coach of the Detroit Red Wings, Mike Babcock wasn't nominated for the Jack Adams award. Joel Quenneville, with the most talented team in hockey, was. Babcock, even before the Anaheim series, has been brilliant all along. He raised the little puppies when all (ok...many) of us thought he was literally trying to get fired. He recovered from the most potentially damaging personnel loss in recent hockey history. Without Nick Lidstrom he created a young defense that will be the best in the East for a decade.

And I can't say this enough, obviously: he's sitting veterans in favor of youngsters and it's paid off again and again. It's a kind of insane genius I'll never comprehend and really can't get over.

Scott Bowman he's not, because playing kids this late goes against everything Bowman believed in. And, honestly, Bowman never coached a Red Wing team that required this kind of creative leadership.

Despite that, Babcock is as close to a Bowman clone as this league has ever seen. Maybe not on a white board, but in the uncomfortable spots players don't like to talk about at parties. Babcock is deep, deep, deep in their heads and he knows precisely what buttons to push at just the right time.

And that's why this thing ends tonite. It ends tonite because Uncle Mike has used this line, or something close, for two days.

Remember?