Back to 1. Seriously. This is disgusting. Have you felt the angst today? Read the naysayers? 67 percent chance of making the playoffs on 4 April, according to a pharmacist. I recall the heady days back before Ken Holland actually had to do something other than throw Daddy's money around like Dave Rozema in a Birmingham strip club (are there strip clubs in Birmingham?), when "67 percent chance" and "Detroit" in the same sentence on 4 April was a reference to chances of winning the Cup.

But that was then, bitches. And this? This is most definitely not then. Now is now and now sucks ass.

Now is two days off before playing the hottest team in hockey (well, second hottest compared to the hottest who took them to school yesterday...more on them in just a moment), followed by a kind of sleeping bear that may be ready to wake up and eat us in the most gruesome, horrible fasion.

Now is pretending 25 doesn't matter if we don't have a shot at 12 but it's really 19 secretly believing that if 25 happens and we play Tampa minus 91 in R1, well then shit we might be looking at something because if you can win 4, 8's not out of the question and as long as we avoid Pittsburgh neither is 12 and if it's anyone but Chicago with 16 on the line, we may be looking at fire trucks and hookers in June on Woodward.

Because that's how we think, you and I. That's how we've been bred to think because of who we are and because of the team that's lured us in, hooked us and won't let us go. Your wives and husbands have never known a stress-less Spring. A few of you have marriages that date back to '91. Um, now that I think of it I have two that, when combined, go back exactly to '91. But that's another story (except for this: "He cares more about the Red Wings than he does about this marriage." Mediator: "Is..that true?" He who shall not be named: "Only during the playoffs." True story, but that was before the upgrade.)

Where were we? Ah, yes. Wednesday. And Thursday. Horrific. Disgustingly stressful games, both of them. But somehow, because it's who they are, you have a feeling that 13 and 40 just aren't going to let this slip through their arthritic fingers. And, by god, neither will James Tiberius Howard.

Wings win Wednesday. Wings win Thursday. Wings finish third in the Atlantic. Wings play Tampa, minus Stralman and Stamkos. And I'll just leave it at that.

On to b.

“I have one more year on my contract and have three games left this year."

He said it. Teddy Kulfan told us so. I simply do not believe that after 15 years of integrity and 15 years of graciousness, that Pavel Datsyuk is going to stick the Wings with that cap hit. I don't see it. Now, if he leaves, some have suggested he'd be willing to accept a deal to a team trying to reach the cap floor, then retire from there. That's a bunch of economic spew that I can't fathom. If it happens, it does. Hell, I thought he was leaving a few years ago.

More likely: Datsyuk stays. One more farewell deke and then it's on to the KHL and the occasional alumni game, with some visits back to greater Detroit for family visits with the Larionovs, as Uncle Igor adapts to his new role as Red Wing GM.

Of all the crap I just threw at you, all the conjecture and all the groundless, juvenilicious predicting of stuff, only one thing is fact: The next two days are going to be the worst of times. They will haunt you. You will do and say things to your family that you'll be apologizing for over the course of the next decade or three. You will get no work done. You will eat poorly and you will drink well.

You're going to suffer through all that for a team that is so flawed, so disjointed, so ill-equipped to make a Cup run.

You'll suffer through it because it's all you know to do in April. Honestly, you know no other way. It's April (in the D) and the Stress Train just happens to be chugging a week early. That's all.

So deal with it. Because if you think it's ending this weekend, if you think your pets are going to be treated to their first fear-free Spring in a quarter century? They've got another thing coming. Win on Wednesday. Win on Thursday. Most likely a restful Saturday, then it's on to Tampa for a little vengeance.

Let's Go Red Wings.